Ice rink, more seating, kids play options among ideas for Corn Palace Plaza expansion

May 8—MITCHELL — A city panel considered some ideas for how best to expand and create Corn Palace Plaza 3.0.

The Corn Palace Entertainment Board met Tuesday afternoon at Mitchell City Hall and received an update on the project, with Corn Palace Director Doug Greenway saying that the current Scoreboard Pub and Grille could be torn down this fall and construction of an expanded plaza could take place in 2025.

The timing will depend on when current Scoreboard owners Jason and Jen Bradley move next door to their new location at 514 N. Main St. later this year. Renovations are taking place on the building to house the new Bradley's Pub and Grille.

The brainstorming session was brought forth by City Council member Tim Goldammer, who is a member of the Corn Palace board as well. Goldammer said it was good to consider different ideas of how the space should be used. He said one of his priorities is having low-cost entertainment options available to the public, regardless of what the city's up-front costs might be.

"For activities, I'm looking at things that would be low cost for people with families to use. Kids would have access to it," Goldammer said. "If I had the unlimited budget, there's a lot of things I would do. Unfortunately, that's probably not the case."

One of the ideas was to have a seasonal ice rink on the Plaza, something similar to what Rapid City and Deadwood have for their city square areas. In the case of Deadwood, it's not real ice, but instead a polymer surface that makes an ice rink a cheaper option.

"I think it's a great idea," Greenway said. "I know it's been considered previously to have a winter rink here but I know that grassy area we have there, it's full irrigation and electrical wiring and it would kill that sod every year on the current plaza."

Board member Jean Koehler said she would like to see more seating added with the plaza expansion. When there's a large crowd on hand to listen to music, there's frequently few places to sit and listen to the music or eat food from area food trucks.

Greenway said the seating will certainly be expanded and likely would replicate the benches already on the plaza. He said officials also got good feedback about tables prior to the first segment of the plaza being built and he'd like to see additional educational signage on the plaza to help visitors learn about the changing mural process.

Goldammer said he'd like to see sunshades added to the area similar to the Cadwell Sports Complex fields to make the area more comfortable, as well. Other ideas included building a splash pad for kids to use, a climbing area and a playground area with artificial turf instead of grass to save on costs. Greenway noted the recent upgrades made to the Riverfront area in Omaha, Nebraska, as a potential inspiration, which has newly built playground areas, slides and climbing structures.

"From a tourism standpoint, we want to keep people downtown as long as possible," Greenway said. "We have the mister on the current plaza and that's very popular in the summertime, too."

City Administrator Stephanie Ellwein noted that building a splash pad comes with certain requirements that regulate the water quality and usage much like a pool, which can add to the costs. She said it was something that was discussed the first time, as well.

This will technically be the third phase of the plaza's transformation over the last decade, which followed the lobby and exterior renovation of the Corn Palace itself in 2015. In 2016 and 2017, construction included building the streetscape bumpouts at Sixth and Main and building the initial signage and installing the corn cob metal sculpture. The second phase included the shade structure, mist feature, a permanent stage and more landscaping enhancements and was formally dedicated in 2020.

Confluence, the landscape architecture firm that designed the initial plaza and the city's streetscape Main Street intersections, has been retained to design the next phase of the plaza. A budget for the project has not yet been defined. Ellwein noted that the city received $100,000 as part of the sale of the 514 N. Main St. building from the Mitchell Area Development Corporation to the Bradleys. A group of city officials is going to meet with Confluence on Monday, May 13 to begin planning a design.

The Scoreboard property is about 9,100 square feet and adding to a small sliver of property that the city already owns between the Scoreboard and the plaza, the city will have about 10,600 square feet to work with for the plaza expansion.

Greenway also noted he would like to work with Confluence to have the current plaza and the expansion flow as well as possible with each other and expand the sound system to help visitors enjoy performances throughout the plaza area.

The Palace director said he wants to pursue more summer events that the Palace can't host inside in the summer. He noted how the Corn Palace Festival used a large stage in 2020 in the city parking lots in that block and how well that worked. He mentioned potential street dances and potential corporate or private events where the city could rent out the space to businesses.

"There's a lot of things we can do in the summer," Greenway said. "I'm not saying we have to entertain the city every weekend but with the extra space, there's things we can do."

Other notes from the Corn Palace Entertainment Board included:

* The Hairball concert from April sold 1,171 tickets and generated $38,220 in revenue.

* About 540 new seat covers will be installed this year to replace torn and damaged seats in the arena.

* Nearly 850 tickets have been sold already for country artist Scotty McCreery, who will play the Corn Palace Festival on Thursday, Aug. 22, a figure that Greenway said he's pleased by. Tickets for rock band Skillet, which will play Saturday, Aug. 24, go on sale on Friday, May 10.

* The basketball season at the Corn Palace resulted in an attendance total of 87,000 people, Greenway reported from Oct. 28, 2023 to March 5, 2024, with 217 games played at various age levels.

* The Corn Palace floor will be transformed into the annual summer gift shop starting Monday, May 20.