During a brief, breezy ceremony Thursday afternoon, officials from the Cabela's outdoors store chain and the city of Rapid City conducted an official groundbreaking for the company's new Rapid City store. Mayor Alan Hanks and Tim Holland, new-store development director for Cabela's, had a hard time plying the frozen ground with their gold shovels. But a great deal of dirt work has already been done in recent months.

By early summer, Cabela's officials said, their new 80,000-square-foot outdoors store will ready to open at the site, north of Interstate 90 between exits 60 and 61.

That was welcome news for local Cabela's supporters. Two days earlier, the Nebraska-based chain said it will cut its 2008 new-store expansions to only two stores, from the seven that had been planned. The company cited a 5.9 percent drop in sales at its existing stores as the reason for the cutback.

But Rapid City will be one of the two stores to open in 2008.

During Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony, Mayor Alan Hanks praised the Rapid City Council for its work to bring Cabela's to Rapid City. He also praised Cabela's and its developer, Foursquare Properties of Carlsbad, Calif., for bringing the project here.

"As we went through the process, we really recognized the potential that Cabela's brought to Rapid City," he said. "In another three or four years, you are not going to recognize this corner."

The Cabela's store will anchor a 700,000-square-foot open-air retail center, according to plans by Foursquare.

When the Rapid City project was first announced in March 2007, Cabela's predicted it would start work by last fall and be open for business this spring. Asked about the delay, Holland said the city referendum, unexpected dirt work and, more recently, bad weather all slowed the process.

In July, opponents to the city's incentive package of 30 acres of land - revised later to 27 acres - $2 million in cash and tax increment financing gathered enough signatures to put the land deal up to a public vote. On Sept. 18, however, 60 percent of the Rapid City voters approved the land transfer.

Contact Dan Daly at 394-8421 or at dan.daly@rapidcityjournal.com