City of Rapid City

The Summit Arena at The Monument | Rapid City, SD

After years of research, discussion, and debate across the community – the City of Rapid City was successful in passing funding for a new $130 million event venue. The initiative involved building a state-of-of-the-art arena adjacent to the existing structure and updating the existing Barnett Arena to aid access to the new facility. The project broke ground in 2019 and unveiled a fitting new name…The Monument.

West Plains Engineering was part of the design team behind The Summit, the new 250,000 square foot arena addition, which was completed in the Fall of 2021. Home to the Black Hills Stock Show & Rodeo, Black Hills Powwow, Lakota Nation Invitational, and countless other sports and entertainment events, the space includes 12,500 seats, as well as the flexibility to host both end and center stage concerts, family shows, circuses, and large-scale sports tournaments, as well as open-floor exhibitions.

The design caters to the next generation of fans, featuring open and transparent concourses, additional social spaces within view of the action, and a variety of experiential and premium seating options.

The Infrastructure Behind Entertainment

As part of this project, the City also opted to upgrade the existing chilled water system at the Central Utility Plant (CUP). The upgrade included a new Ice Storage system that will not only serve the new addition, but also the existing facility and Central High School, which is located across the street. The new Ice Storage system will allow the City to reduce energy costs related to the cooling of all the facilities by producing ice during off-peak electrical times and use the ice during the peak energy-use periods to cool the buildings. This type of energy storage system is strongly promoted by Black Hills Energy and comes with a special electrical rate schedule to make it feasible to make the upgrades and pay off the added costs.