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added entertainment and accommodations options."
• On the west edge of Rowena, The Gas Stop has a sign announcing a future location in an area where there is nowhere to fill up between Sioux Falls and the casino. Company officials did not return phone calls to comment on when that development will be ready.
• Jeff Schmitt, the chief planning and zoning official in Sioux Falls, said the area between the city and Grand Falls isn't a big draw for developers for several reasons. For starters, there are not enough people.
• "You need rooftops, rooftops, rooftops, heads in beds, and you need traffic numbers," he said.
• It could take many years before a convenience store or other businesses are opened along the way to the casino, Schmitt said. A convenience store can cost $2 million, for example, and traffic numbers have to be high enough to support that business, he said.
• Sioux Falls and the casino also are so close that services on the way aren't needed as much.
• "They're not going to say, 'Hey let's stop for coffee,'" he said.
• "That area in between is going to have a real challenge to develop," Schmitt said. "It's traffic numbers."
• At one point, Sioux Falls considered adding a bridge over the Big Sioux River on what would be East 57th Street to help Iowa commuters and shoppers get to the south part of town. It also would have made it easier for people in Sioux Falls and Harrisburg to get to the casino.
• But land along a 57th Street extension isn't yet in the city limits, and the massive size of the bridge makes the project very expensive, even if it also would be more convenient, Schmitt said.
• "It's in the books. It's in our long-range plans, but it's not funded," he said.
• Mark Cotter, director of public works for the city, puts road projects at 57th Street and the river out 10 to 20 years, depending on how fast the area develops. The city's priorities on the east side are to connect Highway 100 to Interstate 90 and to improve Highway 42, which is Arrowhead Parkway, he said.
• "It is certainly a bridge that will happen as we grow out to the Big Sioux River," Cotter said. "What we have to weigh it against is 'Do we have other higher priorities?' The answer is 'Yes.' "
• In the meantime, Grand Falls has been a good community citizen and employer of people in the area, especially workers from Sioux Falls, said Mary Medema, director of workforce development for the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. The casino has sponsored many community events and added hundreds of jobs when it

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