Between dozens of community events, sports and concerts, Posse Grounds Park is the hub for public entertainment in Sedona. Are there ways in which its use can be expanded?

That’s a question that will be answered during this upcoming fiscal year as part of the Posse Grounds Park redesign. The city will spend $60,000 for a consultant to evaluate every aspect of the park in terms of what works, what doesn’t and what is needed. With dwindling participation numbers when it comes to sports, the consultant will look to see if the focus should be on event space in the future.

“I’m looking at best practices and unique ideas,” Parks and Recreation Manager Rachel Murdoch said. “We’re supposed to be an athletic park, a meandering park and the ‘fairgrounds’ of Sedona and host events. What can we do?”

According to a city report, event promoters need an area that can effi­ciently, safely and strategically work as an event venue. Posse Grounds Park is gaining popularity as a location to hold events. However, it has limited parking, fencing restraints, limited lighting and electrical, multiple competing facilities and the fields are maintained and meant to be used for sports.

“Each event that takes place causes a different level of damage to the fields,” it states.

Murdoch said there are many options to better use the park, which could include moving some amenities to other locations or, in some cases, eliminate them altogether.

One of the biggest issues facing Posse Grounds is the lack of parking. There are currently 222 spaces, which includes those at the tennis courts and the dog park. With larger events, there are an additional 150 spaces at West Sedona School that can be used.

“When we’re talking about the Food Truck Festival, Celebration of Spring, Mountain Bike Festival, Wine Fest and others, we have people parking every­where, but we do everything we can to keep people from parking in the neigh­borhoods,” she said. “It is an absolute challenge. There’s also the challenge of getting people onto shuttles.”

Parking’s not just a problem during large events. Murdoch said when there are competing smaller events throughout the park, it can also be chal­lenging. She said if the city wants the other venues to be successful such as the pavilion and The Hub, something needs to be done.

Aside from the park’s redesign, earlier this year Sedona City Council was updated on the Posse Grounds Operational Plan.

“This is an internal guiding docu­ment, so it’s not park rules or city code — but rather an internal document to explain how we do business,” Murdoch said.

In January, council gave direction for the following changes, which were recommended by city staff and a citizen work group:

• Outdoor facilities are available during normal park hours — dawn until 10 p.m. This means that the pavilion, previously a day-use only facility, could now be rented until 10 p.m. like everything else in the park. As with all rentals, the appropriateness of an event will be considered during the rental process by Murdoch.

She said the work group generally supports this idea and that the hours are not necessarily the problem but rather noise.

• To better streamline the rental process, staff agreed that parks and recreation would handle the complete event rental process when it takes place on park property, including temporary use permits.
• This facility was designed for a 300-person audience experi­ence. Events that will exceed the 300-person maximum will be consid­ered for appropriateness by Murdoch. An event whose focus is people sitting on the grass and watching the stage the entire time would still be encour­aged to maintain a 300-person limit for optimum participant experience.

However, events that include vendors, walking around and in and out pedestrian traffic will be allowed to exceed the 300-person limit. An increase would not violate any occu­pant load per Sedona Fire District Fire Marshal Jon Davis, who said 608 chairs would be permitted in the pavilion’s center seating area.

Murdoch said there was no consensus among the members of the work group on this matter. Some don’t want to encourage larger events to use the venue while others believe the current limit is not practical and the city should allow for different capacities for festival seating opposed to chairs.

• Amplified sound for events will now be allowed from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The ending time used to change seasonally and did not accommodate the annual events that use the park. Instead of needing the event promoters to seek a waiver, the city is changing the ending time to be constant.

She said the work group would like to encourage events with amplified sound to take place at the pavilion if they can fit.

A fifth issue that was addressed was the use of alcohol within the entire park. Council would like to be given multiple options on operations if staff was to make the alcohol policy more lenient for private parties and depart­ment-hosted events. That will come before council at a later date.

“While we appreciate the extended hours for sound and operations at the pavilion, we will continue to review each rental request thoroughly to ensure its appropriate for this facility,” Murdoch said in January.

Ron Eland can be reached at 282-7795, ext. 122 or by email at reland@larsonnewspapers.com