The city of Sedona needs your feedback regarding plans for Posse Grounds Park. Maps and details can be found on our website and the city of Sedona’s per Ron Eland’s reporting:
- Concept A calls for additional pickleball courts, a walking loop, a possible children’s garden and modifications to the basketball courts, fitness trail, group ramada and turf at the dog park.
It shifts the baseball fields around, adds pickleball courts and parking. It has the least change almost to the point of “why bother?”
- Concept B calls for a permanent 14,000-square-foot pavilion for events like Sedona Wine Fest and Oktoberfest, pickleball courts, additional parking, better connectivity within the park, open turf event space and the children’s garden. Modifications would be made to the current basketball and pickleball courts and fitness trail.
This concept would essentially eliminate the southern baseball field for a pavilion space. The southern field has the nicer grass getting direct sunlight, and is where the city of Sedona Parks & Recreation Department typically holds the Celebration of Spring Easter Egg hunt adjacent to the multi-use field where all the carnival activities are, which will presumably just move to another part of the park.
In regard to the adult summer softball league, the southern field is the worst one for batters as they have to stare southwest into the sun during afternoon games.
Concept B would also move to the basketball courts east of Posse Ground Road.
- Concept C includes the same elements of the previous option but a different configuration, placing the pavilion on the northern field, shifting the southern field to face due north rather than southwest.
It would also eliminate the multi-use field and create a “town lawn” space that appears to be similar.
Both Concepts B and C plan to build a large pavilion. Right now — COVID-19 notwithstanding — such a structure would only benefit two existing public events, Wine Fest and Oktoberfest, which rent at least one large tent and schedule.
Both of these festivals are big draws for residents rather than just tourists, attracting people from all over the Verde Valley.
Presumably if there was a dedicated space, more such festivals may use it. Vendors could save themselves the costs of individual tent rentals and a rainy day would not necessarily completely terminate an event.
- Concept D includes a proposed recreation center that could be up to 40,000 square feet, but Steve Richardson, city of Sedona parks and recreation manager, said realistically it would be along the lines of 25,000 to 30,000 square feet.
The recreation center would occupy the southern baseball field, leaving most of Posse Grounds relatively untouched except for a sprinkling of improvements. Concept D would clearly be the most expensive of the four draft plans, but likely the one to make the greatest impact.
Quite honestly, it is absurd that a city like Sedona has no public recreation center with gym, meeting spaces, etc. If the city of Sedona wants to hold a large public meeting that City Hall cannot accommodate, it must instead rent space from the Sedona Public Library, resort or business. While the library is more than happy to be that space as it has been for decades, perhaps the city should commit to some sort of space, be it at a recreation center or elsewhere. The city never uses the ex-Sedona Teen Center, now called the Sedona Posse Grounds Hub, for any such public events.
The problem with city’s use of Posse Grounds Park is that the city of Sedona lacks any real, center-of-town-type of public space, like Clarkdale Town Park, the Fort Verde area in Camp Verde, the steps in Jerome, Windmill Park in Cornville or the three areas Cottonwood has: Verde Valley Fairgrounds, the Cottonwood Recreation Center and government complex and Old Town Cottonwood with its adjacent park.
Posse Grounds Park was the location of the local rodeo and other equestrian events for decades before incorporation when the city turned it into our major park. But it is nearly a half-mile off a major thoroughfare tucked into a neighborhood. A refurbishment or recreation center may make it more of a destination location depending on how residents want it to change.
The online survey will be live through Sunday, Jan. 24, on the city’s website. For more information, call the city’s Parks and Recreation Department at (928) 282-7098.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
