By james art 
January 30, 2025
Craig Lloyd, the developer who has done more to shape the face of Sioux Falls over half a century than anyone else, will be laid to rest next week.
His visit will be from 3pm to 5pm Sunday, February 2, with a prayer service at 5 pm at the Catholic Church of St. Maria. The funeral services will be on 16:00 Monday, February 3rd, also in the church.
To see his full obituary, click here.
Friends and colleagues remember the man who was a builder in every sense of the word.
Lloyd built homes, he built apartments, built mixed developments, and most critically in his words built the relationship that made them all happen.
But first, he built small wood huts, using scrap timber in the dirt of Western North Dakota, where he spent part of his childhood as his father Richard, pursuing the opportunities in the country’s oil boom since the 50s.
“Craig, you can do anything you want,” his father told him, as Lloyd told in a speech in 2015, while he was introduced into the Hall of Fame of South Dakota. “” You just dream and work hard and you will succeed .
For more than five decades, it was the mantra.
Exactly how the self -written “dumb artist” has overcome dyslexia and visual impairment will bring a vision for development through Lloyd COS. This helped to move Sioux Falls from city to city.
“If Siu Falls had a Rushmore peak of leaders, Craig Lloyd’s face would undoubtedly be on him,” said Mayor Paul Tenhaken.
“Craig is that rare combination of being a smart and astute businessman, while having a heart like a lion. God broke the shape with him. “
Lloyd died on Wednesday at the age of 76 after complications of pulmonary condition.
“It is an important part of Siu Falls history,” said former mayor Dave Menson, who works closely with Lloyd on Development from 2002 to 2010.
“He was incredibly important for turning this city what he was today, and he never did it with many fanfare. He just did it because it was the right thing. I trusted him a lot. If you tell you he’ll do something, he’ll do it. “
Lloyd credits “Patients bankers, patients’ investors and patient colleagues” for work on his or her ways to bring ideas.
“I made a lot of contracts for napkins – usually a bar napkins – and I made a lot of handshake without contracts,” he said. “It drives my lawyer’s nuts, but we usually seem to work through it.”
Tom Walsh -Senchi agreed, witnessing several of them.
“Craig was known for doing things to a handshake,” he said. “For the success he had, he is so humble and so beautiful, a caring man. A class act. “
The two met in the 1980s when Craig and Pat Lloyd developed Clock Tower Square on 41st Street and Marion Road, and Walsh bought land from them for a future burger King, plus agreed to hire his office in the building S
While Lloyds were more for Sioux Falls and for development, “he was very sincere, kind and caring,” Walsh remembered. “He was hardworking. He built houses alone, and he and Pat did everything together. Just a solid, caring person. It was the beginning of the relationship and it was growing and growing. “
Lloyds came to Sioux Falls in 1972 from Minnesota to work for Craig’s uncle, governing an affordable housing community in Southwestern Siu Falls. They lived there until they built their first house next year – the beginning of Lloyd Construction.
They traveled the 80s of the last century as new owners of small business, cleaning apartments and built screen doors to ensure that they could continue to pay to their employees and creditors.
“I have always admired his perseverance and focus. He just never removed his eye from the ball, however bad the circumstances and challenges were, “says Mike Tennyson, who met Lloyd in the 1980s and later served 14 years in the Board of Directors of Lloyd COS.
“He always stubbornly and always went out of the other end.”
Shortly after arriving at Sioux Falls, Lloyd and City Planner Steve Metli, they found a common relationship in their love for the city center. The two would walk along the big Sius River with peanut butter sandwiches at lunch, raise garbage, and look around what the area might become.
“I think his initial 20, 25 years were very stressful and tense,” Metli said in the news history of 2015. “Every time the economy was rising, he was climbing with her, and every time he went down, he was coming down. So he learned through the Hard Stroke School to manage his business with that. “
In the homes, Lloyd has distinguished himself by taking numerous housing developments at affordable prices, often working with non -profit organizations to make deals.
“I think he probably did more to help people stay on the street in Siou Falls than any person I can think of,” Metli said in 2015.
Tenhaken echoed such thoughts.
“If you think it is only in terms of housing, Craig Lloyd guarantees that thousands of families have had safe, safe and affordable homes over the years,” he said. “No man has had a greater influence on residential families in Siu Falls than Craig.”
The developments of Lloyd’s Signature Citywide include the clock tower, Park Place Center, Meadows on the River, Thelin Business Park, Royal Oak, The Edges, Dawley Farm Village and the development of the Homan family on the 85
However, his largest investment was in the center of Sioux Falls. In the mid-2000s, after the end of Phillips to the waterfall, he led the only group to respond to the city’s request for proposals for the reconstruction of northern Phillips and the North Main Alley.
“He understood the value of the city center center,” Manson said. “He saw how the city center is what makes the communities unique and what makes young people stay here. It was a challenge, but he did it. He saw what could happen to Phillips to the completed falls, and for him the possibilities were endless. I don’t think he ever wanted to stop. “
Lloyd’s commitment to the city center continued with the openings of Uptown and Lumber Exchange developments, which brought new properties, including the cascade at Falls Park, CNA Surety Building and Hilton Garden Inn Downtown.
At the end of last year, he fulfilled the vision for which he and the brooms would dream of Falls Park, as he and Pat helped open the adjacent steel area with mixed use and became the first people to register in their Hilton Hotel sunshade.
“He really loved the city,” said Paul Schiller, who became the second guest to register with his wife Connie.
“It was fun to cast ideas because he loved it.”
As a man, what stood out was “how caring and concerned he was of everyone else,” said Connie Schiller. “He just missed whatever he did, and you felt that you were the only one in the whole world he would talk to.”
Schiller remembers sitting around a small table with Lloyd overlooking the city center and talking about the concept to put a piece of sculpture to turn into the rainbow of dreams.
Five minutes after the presentation, Lloyd stopped him.
“He says, ‘What will it take to get to the next level? “
Schiller replied $ 25,000 and left the funds.
“He raises ideas and then makes them happen and has the courage to do it,” Schiller said. “He is a remarkable human being and we were damn lucky to have it.”
The center “is what is because of Craig Lloyd,” added Manson, who toured the steel area with Lloyd last month. “I thought,” This is the future. ” People are amazed at what we have here now. But he was a performer and made us better. “
Lloy also believed strongly in philanthropy, modeling it in his family and motivating others in the community to give it with him.
“Craig was a visionary leader and a true champion for philanthropy at Siu Falls,” says Andy Patterson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Siu Falls area.
“His generosity formed our community in countless ways, leaving a lasting effect that will be felt for generations. Craig’s influence and dedication were the inspiration for our city and all of us at the Sioux Falls Community Foundation. “
From the point of view, Lloyd COS. It will continue thanks to years of planning and preparation, Tennyson said.
“I couldn’t feel better in the company’s position at the moment,” he said. “We all know that our day is coming and Craig was a very strong believer in planning inheritance. Even VPS has always been a focus. So I feel very good about it. I think relationships with our creditors are very positive. We were very transparent with the community of the creditors we deal with … What are the plans of the company for the transition. “
Lloyd served as the chairman of the board during his death and was inherited as CEO by his nephew Chris Torkelson in 2016.
In his last meeting, Menson said they had talked about Lloyd’s vision of what he wanted to build afterwards.
“We’ll see his fingerprints on many things for many decades ahead,” Menson said. “He must be remembered forever.”
Craig Lloyd, a developer who helped form a modern Sioux Falls, died at 76