How did Sioux Falls land a Canopy by Hilton? Persistence and the lure of downtown.

Look through the list of Canopy by Hilton locations, and you'll see major markets around the world. Boston and the state of Massachusetts just received their first one earlier this year, and there are currently just 32 locations open across the globe. West of Minneapolis and north of Texas, there are no Hilton by Canopy locations until you get to Phoenix and the West Coast.

But there's one planned for downtown Sioux Falls in the Sioux Steel District. The seven-floor modern boutique hotel experience is expected to open in 2024.  City officials say it will boost the downtown experience even more, which is currently redesigning itself with large projects.

"I think that the Canopy brand is going to just add another layer of depth to the experience for those that are visiting the city," Joe Batcheller, president of Downtown Sioux Falls said. "... I think having a hotel and that development at the top of the falls is just going to be amazing. That's going to be a very unique selling point for folks, and I'm sure everybody's going to want to get on the riverside and be able to take in all the views. I don't think there's really going to be anything like it, so it'll be really neat to see when it all comes together."

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Sioux Falls is one of 29 cities that are expecting a Canopy by Hilton. Currently, there are over 30 hotels in operation – mostly in big cities across the country and internationally. The brand announced itself in 2014, with the first property opening in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2016.

Lloyd Company’s CEO Chris Thorkelson visited that property. And that’s how the process to get a Canopy by Hilton to Sioux Falls started.

“He loved it, and so he kept talking about it and I said, ‘Well, I will give it a try,’ and so that’s what we did, was went after them for that,” said Jennifer Seifert-Brenna, vice president of hospitality at Lloyd Companies.

How did Sioux Falls land Hilton by Canopy? A lot of not taking 'no' for an answer

Initially, Seifert-Brenna reached out to the company, which said no. But she wasn’t going to take that for an answer.

“I reached out to Canopy and said, ‘We’d like to consider Canopy for this project,’ and they said ‘No,’” Seifert-Brenna said. “... “Over the course of the next almost 12 months, I just kept sending them information and talking to them and they said no again.”

Seifert-Brenna had a backup plan of Kimpton, a same-level property but with a different brand, but they also said no. Eventually, Seifert-Brenna reached out to a woman she had worked with in the past to explain the project. She flew into Sioux Falls and “fell in love,” Seifert-Brenna said.

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That woman, Susan Bachman, was able to put Seifert-Brenna in touch with higher-ups within the company.

“She was our advocate and helped us find the right path and the right person at Canopy higher up in the chain, and she was very honest and said, ‘They’re likely going to say no,’” Seifert-Brenna said. “There were only five open in the world at that time, and they’re likely going to say no because Sioux Falls is not on their target lists, it’s not a primary market or tertiary market.

“With a brand especially a high-level brand like this, it’s all about your average daily rate and what you can do to drive that,” Seifert-Brenna added.

Within the next month, the head of the company visited Sioux Falls, and the city impressed.

“(We) spent a day and a half with them, literally just walking around downtown and telling them all about what this project is going to look like. It’s a destination, it’s not just another hotel, it’s going to be an experience,” Seifert-Brenna said. “... We set him up with meetings with the mayor, the CVB, with the Chamber, with other leaders in the market just so he could get to know what Sioux Falls was. Again, it’s not like New York, it’s not those primary markets, which is what they were targeting.”

It was a March day, Seifert-Brenna said, and downtown was “hopping.” Team members for Lloyd Companies were encouraged to go out with officials from Hilton, and spend all day with leadership teams.

“He left and came back a little while later and called me and said, ‘We’re gonna give you permission to apply for the franchise,’” Seifert-Brenna said.

After that, the process continued. From there, it had to go through committees for approval. Those close to the project realized how important getting a boutique hotel experience to downtown Sioux Falls.

"Those opportunities don't even come along once in a generation, and so it was important to get behind it and advocate for a development that would be done right, and that would help add some energy and some vibrancy to Uptown," Batcheller said.

'Unique' Sioux Falls Canopy location will embrace the roots of the Sioux Steel district

The project aims to be finished in 2024 as part of the Sioux Steel District.

And the footprint of the Sioux Steel Company is in the rooms. All 216 rooms in the boutique room will have doors made from Sioux Steel, including night tables.

It’s not just rooms that the Canopy is adding to Sioux Falls.

On the first floor of the building, there will be an Italian steakhouse, which is open to the public, along with a coffee shop.

“That’s kind of Canopy as a whole, it needs to fit into the neighborhood and tell a story. Canopy is all about local, versus having a Starbucks in the lobby, we have our own coffee shop in the lobby,” Seifert-Brann said.

On the second floor will be a convention center, which was a big part of the decision.

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Seifert-Brenna said that the new property will be unique because other Canopy locations do not have a convention center. That’ll include 20,000 square feet of the rooms themselves and support pre-function space and additional public space for meeting rooms, she said.

“This is what I call a regional-sized convention center. … Our goal is to get into the path of regional-sized conferences that maybe go in the Upper Midwest or around the United States on an annual basis,” Seifert-Brenna said.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls Canopy by Hilton to open in 2024: Take a look inside