The city of Sedona is currently looking into possibly building a parking garage in Uptown.
Several prominent Uptown property and business owners have long advocated for a parking garage, with a few even offering over the years to sell the city land to build such a structure.
One such option was a two-story parking garage between Van Deren Road and Wilson Road, with the lower level accessible from Van Deren and the upper level accessible from Wilson.
In our two-page spread, “A Comprehensive List of Potential Improvements to Fix Sedona Traffic, published Nov. 6, 2015, we also listed two potential sites in our map. The map is still accessible in its entirety on our website.
Under Item 5 was “Municipal Parking Garage: The city could convert the city parking lot into a multi-level semi-subterranean parking garage that would add to the total number of city parking stalls, compensating for removing parking on State Route 89A. Informational maps at the entrance could direct pedestrians to Uptown shops and restaurants on State Route 89A, Jordan Road and other area routes, bringing business and tax revenue to shops off the city’s main strip.”
And Item 9: “Forest Road Parking Garage: Build a semi-subterranean parking garage on Forest Road between Van Deren Street and Wilson Road.”
Both of these solutions were demarcated by us prior to the 2017 purchase of a vacant building on 401 Jordan Road by the Sedona Chamber of Commerce for a secondary parking lot that it planned at some point in the future to donate to the city of Sedona.
It would appear that time should be soon.
The city could tear down the building and use the building footprint and parking lot to build a parking garage on the 1.63-acre parcel. It’s a short distance from the existing city parking lot, connects to three roads — Schnebly, Van Deren and Jordan — and abuts commercial land on the north, south and east.
If the city added a connection between the northern terminus of Schnebly Road to southbound State Route 89A with plenty of signage to indicate a parking garage was to the west, vehicles heading from Oak Creek Canyon into Uptown could take this detour behind the Clear Creek Trading Post, north of Wayside Chapel, and be deposited at both the Sedona Municipal Parking Lot on the right and the new parking garage dead ahead.
Such a road could also provide a bypass route through Uptown to Jordan Road and avoid the weekend and holiday traffic jams that occur on State Route 89A when a majority of pass-through drivers are hampered by a handful of tourists looking for a place to park along State Route 89A.
Right now, many locals use the Apple Avenue detour to Jordan Road when State Route 89A backs up. A detour to Schnebly Road would accomplish this feat 800 feet further to the northeast.
Most locals looking to stop in Uptown know there are scores of free parking spots off State Route 89A in other lots or on the streets to the west of State Route 89A and would rather use these than indulge in a Holy Grail quest for that one open spot, so crawling behind crusading tourists along the highway is a constant annoyance. We want to get through Uptown as fast a possible to go home or get out of town, so shuffling tourists to a dedicated parking garage while also offering us an alternate route through the area would do more to clean up the traffic mess than even a roundabout at Jordan or Forest roads would.
It would behoove the city to move on this project as fast as possible — or as fast as government allows — and give drivers more than a single lane through the busiest part of the city.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
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