BUILDING COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Belle Fourche: together &

Community development, building relationships, and nurturing partnerships with new businesses and those who wish to expand, epitomize the driving forces behind what the Belle Fourche Development Corporation (BFDC) is working to accomplish in 2023.

The Belle Fourche Industrial & Rail Park was completed in September 2013. The addition of over 2,600 feet of track siding for offloading in 2016 expanded the park’s capabilities. A base of rail business has been established and is growing, thus the rail expansion developed and completed in 2022. The $2 million expansion allows for up to 75 rail cars at the siding with more offloading space to better serve the customers.

“Working with our current rail customers and our prospects to further develop rail business and industry for Belle Fourche and the region is a top priority,” said Hollie Stalder, BFDC executive director. “Local and out-of-area customers utilizing the rail siding will see improved access in 2023.”

The park’s economic impact is significant given that this is the only rail siding site of its kind in western South Dakota with a site ready industrial park at its side. With on- and offloading opportunities available to key customers, transportation savings can be realized immediately.

The development of rail facilities of its kind also relieves some of the burden on highway and interstate system as one rail car can transfer goods equivalent to three to five semi truckloads.

“Belle Fourche is a community with strong leadership and alliances to help make the development process seamless,” Stalder said. “BFDC, the city, the county, the school, and business leaders within, help lead the way and tie it all together. An important component of what economic development is focused on, is aligning with companies to build community.”

Over the past eight years, more than 90 businesses opened, relocated to Belle Fourche or completed an expansion of their existing business.

“We are so pleased with the positive growth,” said Stalder.

“Here in Belle, we work closely with the school for workforce development,” she continued. “With the 2018 expansion and new facility for the Belle Fourche Career and Technical Education Center (CTE), we have been amping up ways we can help the students to partner with employers in the region and take up those opportunities.”

The Belle Fourche School District opened the 21,000-square-foot CTE center in September of 2018.

The 100-by-100-foot building serves the local needs for educating high school students in numerous industries including welding, family and consumer science, accounting, hospitality, and agriculture, and includes an area for an expanded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curriculum. The new building offers high school students, who elect to take CTE courses, better opportunities to do so, in a more modern facility. It recently received $250,000 in grants to purchase equipment that will allow eligible students to obtain a commercial driver’s license.

Businesses looking at Belle Fourche for relocation will be able to capitalize on a number of items.

“We are the center of the nation, and the crossroads that are part of that,” Stalder said.

“Highway 85 experiences over 16,000 vehicles a day through the main corridor of town between Highway 34 on the south end and 212 on the north end — making connections in any direction very accessible. Our close proximity to Interstate 90 adds to the appeal.”

Stalder said the development corporation’s emphasis on housing initiatives is producing steady results. BFDC formed a partnership with NeighborWorks Dakota Homes Resources in the fall of 2014. This partnership is focused on assisting those working in Belle Fourche to be able to consider home ownership. In the past eight years, the partnered organizations helped more than 100 community members either move toward home ownership or to reinvest in their current homes.

The Leadership Belle Fourche class, created in 2017, is designed to help develop and empower leaders for community. The fruits of those labors produced six classes of leaders to date who are really on fire for the community. A strong percentage of those class members are serving in key leadership roles in our community, from city council to economic development and chamber boards as well as other organizations in the community. Of the 60 graduates, several have joined teams who have identified key areas for community development and are working to accomplish them.

Stalder said that during the nine-month class, leaders would enhance leadership skills, broaden community awareness, develop an understanding of servant leadership, and determine ways they might give back to the community of Belle Fourche.

“They just have great energy and good drive for the community,” Stalder said.

“Community development is pretty broad,” Stalder said. “And it does encompass a lot, so the things that we’re working on, we see as being an important part of how Belle Fourche either goes forward or doesn’t. And I think we’re on the right path.”