It’s not uncommon to see motorists in Uptown driving slowly with the hopes of finding a parking spot in a designated lot along the street. But a plan now in the works is expected to help ease that problem.
On Tuesday, Feb. 25, the Sedona City Council gave direction to city staff to continue pursuing the purchase of two adjacent lots on Forest Road — one of which has a home and the other vacant. Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Karen Osburn said negotiations are going well and that the estimated purchase of the two lots is $800,000.
Council then directed staff to create a design for a two-story, three-level parking structure to be built on those purchased lots. One of the two stories would be below ground level, or subgrade, the other ground level with uncovered parking on the roof, or third level. In all, it would look like a one-story structure of nearly 12 feet in height. The only portion that would be taller would be the elevator shaft in the corner of the garage.
The cost of the 272-space garage is estimated at $11.5 million, which includes construction and land acquisition. Once a design and an additional cost estimate is complete, council will then vote on whether or not to approve construction of the garage.
“Let’s finally do something and let’s not kick the can down the road,” Vice Mayor John Martinez said. “That’s what we’ve been doing for 20 years. Let’s get a garage done.”
In terms of funding for the garage, Osburn said there are a variety of options. She said the city would likely fund an up-front amount of $2 million to $3 million from some combination of Sedona in Motion transportation sales tax revenue and accumulated paid parking revenues.
Then, they would use some combination of the ongoing annual paid parking revenue, in-lieu fees, or possible future garage parking fees to fund a debt service payment over the next 30 years.
An in-lieu parking fee gives developers the option to pay a fee instead of providing a portion of the number of parking spaces required by the city code.
Council and staff has yet to determine if there will be a fee to park in the garage.
Council was provided two options in terms of addressing parking issues utilizing the land on Forest Road. The first would be to have a surface lot, which would provide a maximum of 99 spaces for a total cost of around $1.6 million, which includes construction and land acquisition. But it was then pointed out that if in the near future it was determined that additional spaces were needed, a parking garage could be built on that site, with some of the infrastructures already taken care of. The downside: Those 99 spaces would be eliminated during the estimated 18 to 24 months it would take to build the garage.
Councilman John Currivan expressed concern regarding a structure because it conflicts with the transit study, which states that additional parking in Uptown may discourage motorists from using transit. But others on council said they know of cities where both transit and parking garages have been successful.
Nine Uptown locations for a possible parking structure were originally considered but the list was narrowed down to three locations: Forest Road across from Sedona Fire District’s Station 4; the existing municipal parking lot off Schnebly Road; and the commercial lot at 401 Jordan Road.
Consultants Jaime and Chad Snyder provided council with various renderings in December for each site with a list of advantages and disadvantage for each. In the end, they recommended a parking garage on Forest Road. Even though the consensus among the council was to hold off on a parking garage, council gave direction to staff to pursue land acquisition on Forest Road as well as conduct an analysis for a surface parking lot there and the associated costs.
“We wanted to identify places that we felt could increase supply and could potentially provide parking to meet the demands we’re looking at,” Chad Snyder said at that December meeting. “We then wanted to look a little further and investigate each of these sites. We went through that process and narrowed it down to three potential sites based upon the pros and cons of each and narrowed it down from there.”
The Sedona Chamber of Commerce-owned property at 401 Jordan Road was discussed in terms of adding additional parking and what to do with the existing structure on the property. But council decided to hold off on any plans until the Uptown Community Focus Area report is completed, which is expected by the end of the year.
