Avera Health to relocate Dell Rapids medical campus; city readies westward growth

Neighbors vow to fight development that relies on utility service extension toward Interstate 29

A birds-eye view of Avera Health’s proposed hospital facility near Dell Rapids, South Dakota. The Catholic faith-based hospital system plans to build a new, modern hospital to replace the 67-year-old Dells Area Health Center near the city’s center. (Graphic illustration via Google Earth)

The longstanding hospital in Dell Rapids could be moving to the outskirts of the northern Minnehaha County community.

Avera Health pitched the move to a panel of officials on the Minnehaha County and Dell Rapids Planning and Zoning boards during a joint meeting Monday in Sioux Falls, where plans for a modern medical campus took another step forward.

But the rural residents whose homes dot the rolling hillside where it’s supposed to go — about a mile west of the city — aren’t happy about it.

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