The city of Sioux Falls is looking to add a neighborhood to the National Register of Historic Places. If the application is accepted, Sioux Falls will welcome the Hunter’s Addition into the city as its eighth historic district.
In order to be added to the national registry a neighborhood must have enough historic significance where it may have had, or still does have an impact on the history of the community.
Sioux Falls Project Manager Debra Gaikowski says being named under the registry is a way of defining a particular time in history such as World War Two. She says the Hunter’s Addition neighborhood possesses interesting architectural features on the homes as well as an old-fashioned atmosphere.
"It has a lot of roads that don’t necessarily go straight through so it kind of has maintained that kind of quaint feel to it." says Gaikowski. "And when you drive through the area and you look at the homes you can see that people take a lot of pride in the homes and they’ve done a lot of work to maintain the homes and to keep them at a level that would make it eligible for the national register."
Gaikowski says residents of a historic district are eligible for tax incentives if they do any work on their homes. They are also eligible for the Deadwood Fund Grant. Gaikowski says being named as a historic district is also a drawing point for potential home owners.
Gaikowski says reaching the national register is a spread-out process and could take up to five years.