Lloyd Companies Celebrates Co-Founder Craig Lloyd’s Legacy

Craig Lloyd, a cherished husband, father and grandfather who envisioned a brighter future and fostered relationships to realize his dreams, passed away on January 29, 2025, at the age of 76.
Born in Mankato, Minnesota, Craig was raised as an only child. His mother, Faye, nurtured his creativity and helped him navigate the challenges of dyslexia, while his father, Richard, instilled in him the belief that hard work and ambition could lead to great achievements.

Craig’s determination first surfaced when he met the love of his life, Pat Daly, whom he persistently pursued until she agreed to dinner. The couple married in 1971, and Craig proudly embraced his role as an “outlaw” in Pat’s large Irish family, steeped in rich traditions. Each month brought new family gatherings, including the annual fishing trip and the “wood choppers ball” at the family farm.

In 1972, Craig and Pat moved to Sioux Falls and founded Lloyd Companies.
Under Craig’s leadership and love for community, their family business became a multi-generational, regional leader specializing in development, construction, commercial real estate, property management and hospitality.

Lloyd Companies’ commitment to Sioux Falls reshaped the community’s downtown, with signature developments from The Steel District to Uptown at Falls Park and the Lumber Exchange.

As a family business leader, Craig was blessed to work with Pat as well as his three daughters, Liz, Christie and Mary, at various times in the business, in addition to his two sons-in-law, Todd Ernst and Wayne Huber, and his nephew Chris, who now leads the company as CEO. Other family members served as investor-partners along the way.
As a child, Craig moved nearly two dozen times following his father’s entrepreneurial career before graduating high school in Florida and later returning to Minnesota, where he graduated from Mankato State University in 1971.

Craig’s life in business began with managing a single apartment community for his uncle, offering affordable housing in southwest Sioux Falls. He and Pat lived there before building their first home in 1973, which marked the start of Lloyd Construction. Two years later, they’d built 50 homes in Sioux Falls working on nights and weekends. Three years after that, it was 100.

Amid a changing era in the city, Craig found a kindred spirit in city planning director Steve Metli. Over lunch walks along the Big Sioux River picking up trash at Falls Park, they dreamed and planned for a city that would embrace its one-of-a-kind namesake.

In the 1980s, Craig and Pat fought to keep their business alive as high interest rates crushed many in single and multi-family housing. They built screen doors and cleaned apartments to ensure they could continue to pay their employees and lenders, then committed to building a business model that could withstand future economic crises.

The decades that followed would see Craig and his team pioneer new ground across Sioux Falls, turning rural areas into destination developments that drew new national retailers to town, building thousands of apartments for all budgets and helping other families leave their own legacies by transforming their generational land into thriving mixed-use developments.

Clock Tower, Park Place Center, Meadows on the River, Thelin Business Park, Royal Oak, The Edges, Dawley Farm Village and the Homan family development at 85th Street and Minnesota Avenue are among Lloyd’s most transformational developments, as is Block 5 in downtown Rapid City, which will open this year.
By the 2000s, the picture that Craig and Steve had painted in their minds had begun to take shape in downtown Sioux Falls. The Uptown development allowed hundreds of new residents to move to Phillips Avenue, which became connected to Falls Park. A decade later, the former Schoeneman’s Lumber property transformed into the Lumber Exchange office building and Hilton Garden Inn Downtown.

In the pinnacle of fulfilling a vision, The Steel District opened in 2024, bringing an unprecedented scale of downtown development, including hospitality, offices, apartments, condominiums, retail shops and restaurants, to the Rysdon family’s Sioux Steel property.
Despite his love for his work, Craig always prioritized time with his family and friends. He joked that his four grandchildren – Ellie, Libby, Ari and Evan – were so much fun he wished he’d had them first. He treated the Thorkelson kids, Harper and Oliver, as grandchildren too, often taking the third generation on drives around Sioux Falls and always reminding them to give back. Christmas brought the chance to hear how the grandchildren had donated funds Craig and Pat gave them to support area nonprofits.
He loved winters in Naples, especially the family’s memorable Florida golf outings; summers at Spirit Lake, where he served as captain of the pontoon “Nap Time”; and the 50+ year annual family fishing trip north. Wednesday morning meant an early breakfast with his grandchildren at The Original Pancake House. For more than 40 years, Friday morning meant catching up with his breakfast buddies at the “Table of Knowledge” with double-burnt rye toast. Saturday morning often involved hours of driving from one side of Sioux Falls to the next watching the city take shape.

Craig transitioned to the role of board chair for Lloyd Companies in 2016, succeeded as CEO by his nephew Chris Thorkelson.
He continued to be integrally involved in the business, embracing work most recently from his new office at The Steel District overlooking the Big Sioux River and being the first hotel guest at the new Canopy by Hilton late last year. He took immense pride in the entire Lloyd Companies team, and he spent the final decade of his life ensuring the foundation was set for even greater work in the years ahead.His team will long hear his trademark “Lloydisms” in their minds – including “The snow is coming,” a reminder to get to work today in anticipation of what could lie ahead.

Beyond his work with Lloyd Companies, Craig also believed strongly in giving back to the community, often quietly and always generously – including with his time. He held numerous volunteer board leadership roles, including as president of the Home Builders Association of the Sioux Empire, national regional manager of the South Dakota Home Builders Association and as a board member for the Sioux Falls YMCA, Mankato State University Foundation and on the board of trustees for Augustana University.
He was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2015.

Craig’s legacy lives on everywhere from the top of The Steel District’s highest tower overlooking Falls Park to the studio apartment that helped someone afford a place to call home.

He found joy in the journey, from an idea to an opening day and every step in between, guiding his family, his team and the communities they served to places that will continue to change lives for generations.
As he would have said, “Who’da thunk?”

Craig is survived by his wife, Pat; daughters Liz, Christie (Todd Ernst) and Mary (Wayne Huber); grandchildren Ellie and Ari Huber and Libby and Evan Ernst; his “out-laws” Alice and Tom Seuntjens, Bill and Maxine Daly, Joe and Linda Daly, Bets and Phil Thorkelson, Ginny and Tom DeSutter; cousins Louise and John Loosbrock, Peter and Jeanne Steiner and Billy and Patty Steiner, Janine Rutherford and Suzanne Droppert; and numerous nieces and nephews, including Chris Thorkelson (Kristen) and their children Harper and Oliver.
In Craig’s memory, contributions may be made to the Lloyd Family Charitable Fund at the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. To donate to the fund online, click here.

Visitation for Craig will be held at St. Mary Catholic Church Sunday, February 2nd, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., with a prayer service at 5 p.m.

Funeral services will be Monday, February 3rd, at 4 p.m. at St. Mary Catholic Church.

Funeral services are being provided by Miller Funeral Home, to find more information, click here.