Rapid City SD – The biggest item on Thursday’s Zoning Board of Adjustment agenda isn’t a development.
It’s a sign, or rather several: a request to put up to 1,400 square feet of tenant signage and 850 square feet of electronic message centers on the 1982 Block 8 Tower at 440 Mount Rushmore Road. Staff recommends denial.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment meets at 7 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in the City Council meeting room at City Hall, and the Planning Commission follows directly. Here’s what’s in front of them.
Zoning Board of Adjustment
Item 2: Block 8 Tower sign variance (26VA028). Block 8 LLC wants to raise the cap on wall signs from 420 to 1,400 square feet and on electronic message centers from 60 to 850. Staff calculates those as increases of 233% and 1,316%.
The plan shows five 100-square-foot tenant signs and three message panels, the largest 560 square feet at the top of the building’s north side. The applicant says a seven-story building needs more than a formula based on street frontage allows.
Staff says the lot is flat and regular, and that seven 60-square-foot signs or a joint sign would serve the tenants. Staff also notes a 46-square-foot message sign was recently permitted at the east entrance.
Who’s asking. Block 8 LLC was formed with the South Dakota Secretary of State on March 26, 2026, about six months before the sign application.
Its registered office is LIV Hospitality’s headquarters. The application is signed by Billi Raker as Block 8’s authorized representative and LIV Hospitality’s vice president of business development.
LIV describes itself as a Rapid City company that develops, owns and manages more than a dozen Black Hills hotels, resorts, restaurants, gaming establishments and bars.
Planning Commission
Items 2 through 4 are on the consent calendar, which passes in a single vote on staff’s recommendations.
Any commissioner, staff member or audience member can pull an item for separate discussion.
The Rapid Creek rezones, Items 5 and 6, are regular agenda items and will be heard on their own.
Item 2: Pioneer Drive plat (26PL083). Evergreen Real Estate wants to split 3035 Pioneer Drive into two lots. Staff recommends approval with 18 stipulations. One is an exception so the cul-de-sac can serve 21 homes instead of the 20-home limit.
Item 3: Valley Drive rezone (26RZ032). The Becketts want 859 Valley Drive changed from Low Density Residential to Mobile Home Residential so they can place a double-wide. Staff recommends approval.
Item 4: Pioneer Drive annexation (26AN002). The companion to Item 2. Staff recommends waiving the annexation requirement and denying the petition, since the property is in a county corridor served by Rapid Valley Sanitary District.
If it were annexed, the fire district would want $619.73 in debt reimbursement.
Rapid Creek Rezones
Items 5 and 6: Rapid Creek rezones (26RZ020, 26RZ033). Boomshockalocka LLC wants two pieces of a 25.61-acre parcel east of Cambell Street rezoned out of Flood Hazard: 8.18 acres north of the creek to Light Industrial and 1.24 acres south of it to General Commercial.
The floodway itself stays Flood Hazard. Staff recommends approval of both, though it says there are no changed conditions in the area and that General Commercial isn’t a supported district under the land’s Light Industrial future land use.
What the rezone actually removes. Staff describes the parcel as almost completely encumbered by floodway and federally regulated 100-year floodplain.
The rezoned pieces sit outside the floodway line, drawn from 2013 FEMA maps, but not necessarily outside the floodplain.
Under Flood Hazard zoning, any structure needs a conditional use permit and a public hearing.
City code says those structures can’t be for human habitation, the applicant must file an evacuation plan, and the Council may require flood-resistant construction, anchoring against flotation and placement that least obstructs floodwater.
After the rezone, uses allowed by right in Light Industrial or General Commercial skip that process. They still need a floodplain development permit, which the City Engineer or a designee approves or denies. The code’s permit procedure lays out elevation and floodproofing requirements but no public notice or hearing.
A pattern worth watching. This is the fourth Flood Hazard request in about three months, after the Storybook Island rebuild (26UR015) in August and work at the Canyon Lake Little League fields (26UR017) in September.
Conditional use permits in the Flood Hazard District aren’t new: for years they have mostly gone to the city or nonprofits on parkland, one hearing at a time.
These two cases are different. A private owner is asking to take land out of Flood Hazard zoning altogether. Staff’s own report says that ideally the city would own floodplain land to protect the greenway. Rapid Creek is the stream whose 1972 flood killed approximately 238 people.
Who’s asking. Boomshockalocka L.L.C. was formed in November 2013. Daene Boomsma is its manager and registered agent, according to Secretary of State filings. Since at least 2023, the company has listed the same business address as Indigo Design LLC, the agent that filed the rezoning letter.
Unanswered : When Boomshockalocka bought the parcel, and what it plans to build.
Neither rezone includes a site plan or names a proposed use.
How to weigh in
General public comment is the last item on the Planning Commission agenda, Item 8, after every case has been decided. Anyone who wants to speak on a specific case should do it when that item comes up, or ask to pull it from the consent calendar before the vote.
The floodplain rezones don’t end Thursday. Whatever the commission recommends, the City Council takes up 26RZ020 at first reading Oct. 19 and second reading Nov. 2.
Sourcing
Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission agendas, project reports and applicant materials for 26VA028, 26PL083, 26RZ032, 26AN002, 26RZ020 and 26RZ033, Oct. 8, 2026.
South Dakota Secretary of State filings for Block 8 LLC (DL324365) and Boomshockalocka L.L.C. (DL035798).
LIV Hospitality: Elevate Rapid City member listing.
Rapid City Municipal Code § 17.28.040, § 15.32.260, § 15.32.270 and § 15.32.280. City agenda items: 26RZ020 and 26UR017. 1972 flood: Britannica.
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