Rushmore Plaza Civic Center

The Rushmore Plaza Civic Center is a 150,000 square foot Exhibition center in Rapid City, South Dakota. It contains a 10,000 seat multi-purpose arena. It was built in 1977 and the grand opening event was an Elvis Presley concert on June 21st. It was home to the Rapid City Thrillers basketball team.

The Rushmore Plaza Civic Center is home to many large events including the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo, Lakota Nations Invitational, and the Black Hills Homebuilders Expo. It also showcases many motorcycles during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It was home to the Rapid City Thrillers basketball team. The Civic Center is the main event center for western South Dakota.

It is currently managed by Brian Maliske and has plans for expansion for a new arena that will house a hockey team and music concerts as well, but those plans were voted down by the citizens of the city. The new arena was designed to double the capacity of the Civic Center, and was completed in 2008. It allows two simultaneous events to occur under one building, and it used to be largest venue center in South Dakota, until it was supplanted by the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. The new arena features luxury boxes for events and the Rapid City Rush home games. The new arena hosts the Rapid City Rush of the ECHL.

The future of the arena was decided in a referendum on June 5, 2018. A new arena would cost $182 million and renovations to make the facility ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant would cost $28.3 million. A previous referendum was held in 2015 for a $180 million expansion of the facility and it was rejected by the voters. The voters approved a new arena with 64% voting for the proposal in the June 2018 referendum.