April 16, 2020

By Rob Swenson, for SiouxFalls.Business

The Labor Temple, which has been a workforce landmark in Sioux Falls for 64 years, is for sale, and it’s not because local unions are reducing their space needs. The reason is the opposite: They want more room.

The union organizations that own the Labor Temple at 101 S. Fairfax Ave. want to sell it and buy a bigger building. The 13,434-square-foot Labor Temple is listed with Jim Dunham & Associates and available for a listed price of $1.1 million.

The building, which includes offices for several local unions, opened in 1956. It was built by labor organizations with union help.

Local 304A of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents employees of the Smithfield Foods meat-processing plant in Sioux Falls and other businesses in the region, is the largest shareholder in the building. The union is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Union representation is growing, and the organization needs more space, said BJ Motley, president of Local 304A. He is also the secretary-treasurer of the Sioux Falls Regional Labor Federation.

Extra space is needed to create a child care center to assist union members, Motley said. He also would like to create an area for retired union members to gather and relax.

“I want to get them a place of their own where they can come, hang out, watch TV sports or whatever,” Motley said. “We’re looking out for the younger generation and for the older generation,” he said.

Limited parking at the existing temple is another reason that unions would like to move to another location. Only about a dozen parking spaces exist immediately around the site.

A larger building would allow the owner organizations to better accommodate the unions that have offices in the building or would like space in the building. Currently, about a dozen labor organizations use the Labor Temple. A few other unions have offices elsewhere in Sioux Falls.

Motley said Local 304A represents about 4,200 workers in South Dakota and Nebraska, including approximately 3,800 workers at the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls. In addition, the union is trying to grow. Attempts are underway to unionize hotel workers in the city, he said.

“Working-class people are seeing the advantages and benefits of being union,” Motley said. “We’ve got a lot more interested in establishing unions.”

In addition to Local 304A, shareholders in the Labor Temple include the Teamsters Local 120, which has its own hall in Sioux Falls. The Teamsters represents thousands of workers in the region, ranging from warehouse workers and food drivers to police and corrections officers.

The Teamsters is the third-largest shareholder in the building. A union for local carpenters is the second-largest shareholder.

The Teamsters plans to remain in its own building after the Labor Temple is sold, said James Heeren, a business agent for Local 120. The Teamsters would reinvest its share of proceeds from the sale of the Labor Temple back into its union, he said.

“I’d like to see the sale go through,” Heeren said. “I’ve seen his (Motley’s) vision for some of the programs, and I think it’s great.”

The Labor Temple has served its purpose well, but it’s time for unions based there to branch out their programs and grow, Heeren said.

The existing building is next to the Handy Man Home Remodeling Center on East 10th Street, two blocks west of the intersection of 10th and Cliff Avenue. The Labor Temple has been on the market for about two months.

Jim Dunham said his firm has received numerous inquiries about the building from office-type users and nonprofit organizations.

“For the price, you get a lot of office space, a lot of square footage,” he said. In addition to offices, the building includes an event hall, conference room and commercial kitchen.

The building is in a good location, on the east side of the Big Sioux River near the downtown area, Dunham said. The biggest concern expressed by inquiring parties has been the availability of parking in the area, he said.

The Labor Temple has been in the public spotlight periodically since construction began on the building in the mid-1950s. In 1987, for example, local union workers at the John Morrell & Co. plant, which is now Smithfield Foods, engaged in a headline-generating sympathy strike in support of a strike at another Morrell plant. That focused some attention on the Labor Temple. Labor representation also recently spoke about Smithfield’s temporary closure and measures taken to address the COVID-19 outbreak at the plant.

Through the years, there also have been some hotly contested elections for union offices. In recent years, however, unions in Sioux Falls have operated largely under the public radar.

Dunham is looking for building options for Labor Temple owners to consider once their current building has been sold.

One building that Motley expressed preliminary interest in for a new union home was the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Sioux Empire building at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street. However, that building is under contract to another potential buyer.

The unions will have other options, Dunham said.