Elmen Center to receive $3M renovation
July 13, 1987 — the date inscribed on the ceremonial shovel propped up in a corner of Director of Recreational Services Logan Haak’s office. This was the day Augustana broke ground on the Elmen Center, and the brand-new facility opened for use about two years later.
Almost 40 years have passed since then, and today’s Elmen Center still serves a great many purposes for both the Augustana and the Sioux Falls communities. To call it “brand-new,” however, would no longer be true.
“I mean, it’s stood the test of time,” Vice President of Athletics Josh Morton said. “It’s still a great facility — just needs some modern amenities.”
In Phase I of the first substantial refresh in its history, the Elmen Center is set to undergo a $2.9 to $3 million renovation project through 2025 and 2026.
Augustana has partnered with ISG, a Sioux Falls engineering firm. The work will focus on the first-floor auditorium, including new flooring for the basketball court and track, chair-back seating, upgraded lighting, and audiovisual technology updates.
Plans for Phase II, which would address the rest of the facility’s limits, remain indefinite.
According to Morton, the renovation timeline depends on incoming donations.
Foundations associated with the Elmen family donated $2 million to jumpstart the project, covering nearly two-thirds of the estimated cost. President Stephanie Herseth Sandlin confirmed another $400,000 has been pledged, and fundraising will continue to raise the remainder.
“We have more meetings that we’re scheduling from May throughout the summer in the hopes that we can cover the gap,” Herseth Sandlin said. “We hope that bids will be favorable, but this is also an uncertain economic environment with the tariffs and threat of tariffs, and the uncertainty around that. So by August, September — hopefully we’ll have the resources secured.”
Morton noted that the larger, more invasive renovations of flooring and seating must take place at the same time, so as not to damage the new floor with the installation of other equipment; however, Morton and Herseth Sandlin said that this work will not begin until the fundraising for it is complete.
If the entire amount is secured by the end of summer 2025, Herseth Sandlin said that the necessary equipment orders will be placed as soon as possible, with the goals of beginning the larger part of the renovation project around April or May of 2026. In that ideal situation, the upgraded facility is projected to be available by the 2025–26 basketball season.
Current funds allow for the lighting and sound work to be completed this summer. Haak said that these smaller changes will ideally begin around late June or early July and be complete by the fall 2025 semester.
According to Haak, the Phase I renovations focus on the main auditorium area to improve both the athlete and fan experience, as well as to optimize the space for large events. Haak called the collective desire of administrators, athletics and students to bring Augustana basketball back to campus “a big catalyst” for pursuing the project.
“Of all the things that excite me, one of the most [exciting] is that if you attend the Boe Forum or any of our other events in there too, if somebody gets up out of the bleachers we currently have and they leave, you can hear it outside,” Haak said. “[...]Just the weight capacity we’re gonna be able to handle, and then having some more comfortable seating for our fans too, I think, is gonna be an exciting overhaul and change in everything.”
Though an Elmen Center upgrade was not written into the Viking Bold 2030 plan, Morton said that the facility’s limits have been on the minds of administrators for a few years now.
“You know, it’s a community asset,” Morton said. “So I think anytime you can look to improve things, it’s elevating the profile of the university. So while [the Elmen renovation] wasn’t specifically designated as a [Viking Bold 2030] project, it was something that we all knew we’d like to do at some point.”
