Icon Lounge suspends concerts after noise complaints pile up

The Icon Lounge in downtown Sioux Falls has become a hot spot for concerts and entertainment events since opening six years ago.

But now the establishment's role in the city's revitalized core is in jeopardy due to noise rules.

The Icon Lounge has hosted concerts nearly every weekend since it opened in 2012. But after an apartment complex opened in the nearby Jones Building, the city began receiving complaints about the noise coming from Icon. This month police twice cited the lounge for violating acceptable decibel levels after 10:30 p.m.

Sioux Falls Police Department spokesman Sam Clemens said the most recent citation occurred on Feb. 19 when an officer was called to the Jones Building at 421 N. Phillips Ave. where he took several decibel readings from both inside and outside of the reporting party's apartment unit.

"He took the (readings) from on her deck and inside her apartment," Clemens said. "The lowest was 67.7 db and high was 73.5 db."

Both those levels exceed what's allowed in city ordinance - 65 dbs for commercial land uses and 55 dbs for residences after 10:30 p.m. So the Icon Lounge received a $95 ticket.

But that cost pales in comparison to the financial undertaking Icon Lounge owners say they've incurred trying to bring their facility into compliance since its new neighbor arrived last fall.

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Stacy Newcomb-Weiland, a part of the Icon Lounge ownership group, said when the first complaints about noise were received in October, the facility's management immediately began studying its options. One was to insulate and board up all the windows and doors on the building's east side in hopes of deflecting the sound that reached the Jones Building.

"We’ve closed up the side, but a lot of the noise is coming out of the roof now," she said. "We were told by one of the tenants that ... it actually made it worse."

The second option they pursued was to install acoustic matting on the roof to absorb the sound that's now being deflected to the ceiling. But before they could get started on that, an engineer hired to assist alerted them the roof couldn't sustain more weight without first installing more rafters and roof joists.

The acoustic matting is being installed this week. But even with an estimated $25,000 worth of work already invested in addressing the noise problem, Newcomb-Weiland said it's still not clear if that will be enough to keep decibel levels reaching the Jones Building at a low enough level.

"If this doesn’t work, we're gonna have to do something else," she said. "This a very inexact science. Sound is like water, if it can't get one way, it’ll find another way."

With amplified concerts making up about 40 percent of the Icon Lounge's business, Newcomb-Weiland said they're no longer booking musicians until a solution is found. That's resulted in a loss of business in the same range of what's been spent on the additional soundproofing, she said.

Newcomb-Weiland said she understands how the noise coming from the Icon Lounge can create a nuisance for the people living next door. But she takes issue with the fact that the allowed decibel levels changed when the apartment was built.

Prior to that building opening, the Icon Lounge was allowed to hit 65 decibels no matter the time of day.

"We've gone from 65 db to 55 db, which ... is a really extreme change," she said. "It changed to residential when that building opened in September. ... But we're an existing business that’s been there for years."

Fortunately for the Icon Lounge's bottom-line, it's able to continue regular operations in its event hall where wedding parties and other special events are hosted. The facility also remains open for regular lounge hours.