What's next?

BROOKINGS — After more than 25 years of rodeos and rock & roll, commencements and conventions, seemingly continual debate over finances and three different names, the Dacotah Bank Center could be headed for a distinct new chapter.

As the city-owned event center approaches its 30th anniversary, myriad factors have converged to force a hard look at the building — both in cost and also in service to the community. And while what will become of the building is still very much up in the air, it does seem certain that big changes are coming, and quickly.

More than 100 residents attended a pair of open houses at Dacotah Bank last week, where city officials showed the results of a city survey — opinion is split — and further asked for community input before they take official action.

“We had really good participation in the first one,” Mayor Ope Niemeyer said of the open houses. “We also had some good questions. I think what was kind of enlightening for people is how much money we spend to actually subsidize that building.”

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Approved by Brookings voters in 1999, what was then known as the Brookings Area Multiplex opened in 2001. A naming rights contract dubbed it the Swiftel Center from 2006 through 2023, when Dacotah Bank became the title sponsor.

The building is owned by the City of Brookings and has been operated by a management company called Oak View Group since 2021. That contract runs through the end of 2026, with the city needing to give notice of intent to renew by June.

Most everyone agrees, the event center was never meant to make money — at least on its own. It was supposed to bring events to town that helped the tourism and tax bottom lines, however — and it wasn’t expected to be a drain on city resources.

Which brings us back to today.

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According to city documents, the event center cost Brookings more than a million dollars last year: $671,761 in capital funds and $419,615 in operational costs.
But more concerning than the raw expense is the trend line.

According to city data, attendance at large events at the facility rose steadily coming out of COVID-19: 84,000 visitors in 2022, nearly 100,000 in 2023 and just shy of 110,000 in 2024.

But 2025 saw just 64,710 in attendance at Dacotah Bank events — by far the lowest number in the last 10 years, excluding the pandemic.

And even in a microcosm, the future doesn’t look bright as bands like Chicago aren’t a financial boon for the center.

“The Chicago show might have broken even,” Niemeyer said of the 1980s rock band’s concert last November. “Because a bunch of people my age were out there watching Chicago. They don’t drink a lot of beer. At a rock and roll concert, there may be a little bit more of a consumption thing there. But venues like this anymore? We’re not uncommon. I mean, it’s happening throughout the United States.”

The mayor is pointing to a nationwide trend in live entertainment — especially music — that has played out across the country and the world since COVID.

There is effectively no middle class in touring music anymore.

While at the top of the food chain, acts like Beyonce and Taylor Swift smash records selling out football stadia, and stalwart touring acts like Dead & Company, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen reliably sell out 20,000-seat arenas every few years, the bottom has fallen out of the live music market.

Rising costs from seemingly all sides have created a new reality: Only acts that can charge top dollar for tickets can make money on the road.

“Smaller venues like this; T. Denny Sanford, they’re big enough where they can take the large concerts. But as far as the second tier thing, like the old rock and roll bands that you and I might have listened to. And to me, ZZ Top is not a small thing, because as far as I’m concerned, I think they rock,” Niemeyer said. “But they’re not going to get the attendance that some of our bigger pop stars get anymore.”

And so, faced with rising costs — and the additional work required of a nearly 30-year-old building in the future — and an unsure revenue model going forward, the City Council decided to solicit public opinion on the future of the venue before it considered another contract with the management group.

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Here’s where we run head-on into the elephant in the room: People in Brookings have long clamored for a recreation center.

The Dacotah Bank facility is 90,000 square feet, with just a third of that dedicated to the arena space. Could the space be turned into a rec center? And is that what the public wants?

The city undertook a survey last month to find out. And the results were inconclusive, to say the least.

According to the survey, 30 percent of respondents wanted an event-focused space, while 24 percent favored a recreation-focused use. And 35 percent supported a hybrid between the two.

All we all want is everything.

Two notes about that data, as well: It was a self-selecting voluntary response, not a scientific representative sample. Eighty-one percent of respondents attended at least one event at the venue in 2025, in a year when attendance at the building cratered. Second, 28 percent of the respondents live outside the city limits, meaning they would not likely be eligible to vote on the funding mechanism to pay for a change.

Which brings us back to the last attempt to build a rec center in Brookings.

In April of 2016, Brookings city residents voted on a proposed $25-50 million project — the proposal was in two large phases with the second including a pool — to build a 150,000 square foot recreation center at the Fishback Soccer Complex. It would have included indoor soccer, basketball, tennis and racquetball courts in the first phase, with the pool in the second phase to follow.

But voters roundly rejected the proposal, to the tune of 3,583 no votes to 758 yes.

“Let’s just look at that one. That was a price tag of $26 to 50 million, but the $50 million mark included a pool,” Niemeyer said. “So when you put that pool in there, you start looking at quite a bit more expense, and that’s an ongoing expense too.

"At that time, we had an estimate of $1.2-$1.3 million just to maintain it, because you’re gonna basically have lifeguards on the clock all the time, and heat, and chemicals,” Niemeyer said. “I mean, I’ll tell you right now, my mother-in-law didn’t vote for that. She said, ‘You’re not including the pool in the first phase. I refuse to vote for it.’ And, she was pretty blunt with me, and said, ‘I will be six foot under by the time you guys put a pool in there. It’s not gonna do me any good. Why would I vote for it?’”

With the benefit of hindsight, that effort to build a rec center may have failed because in an attempt to appeal to everyone, it ultimately satisfied no one. Which is likely the fate this effort to retrofit the Dacotah Bank Center needs to avoid.
Plus, in the interim, the facility has generated genuine stakeholders in the community.

Brookings High School moved its graduation from Frost Arena to the new building. Two yearly rodeos there are the life’s blood of the SDSU rodeo team. The annual 4-H Achievement Days are at the building. And its current footprint bumps against the space for the Larson Ice Center, opened in March of 2000, to eventually expand to a third sheet of ice.

There’s also the matter of the new police station, which is now slated to be built somewhere on the same piece of property as the facility, though the council is not of one mind on the exact location.

Niemeyer said if he had his druthers, the location south of the current event facility parking lot would win out, giving the new police station prominence to travelers on U.S. 14 and a pair of entrances and exits for traffic.

But that decision, as well as what, exactly, to do with the Dacotah Bank building, will be officially decided by the council in the coming weeks and months.

Whatever the decision is, it will need major community buy-in. As Niemeyer notes in his opinion piece (see Opinion), a new state law would allow the city to collect funds for a project such as retrofitting the Dacotah Bank Center — but it would need 60 percent support up front. It will have to pass the mother-in-law test.

“HB1245 could come into play with this if we figure out what the community wants,” Niemeyer said.

“Because if we were to try to enact that 1% sales tax, 60% of the community has got to be all in, so it almost has to encompass everything everybody wants in order for it to get that done. And so, you know what? It may include a pool out there.”

Linehan is the Beacon’s managing editor and welcomes comments at BrookingsBeacon@gmail.com