The city of Sedona is looking into purchasing the Cultural Park with the intention of building low-income housing.
“Council wants me to see what we could do about a potential city purchase,” City Manager Karen Osburn said at the Thursday meeting.
The Cultural Park property, located off of West State Route 89A, has been in limbo for almost two decades. After buying the property for around $6 million in 2003, owner Mike Tennyson, of Custer, S.D., originally listed it for $15 million in 2004. Since then, many offers have been made and denied, as well as some being denied by the city based on proposed buyers’ plans for the parcel.
Currently, the 41 acres sits at $19.9 million, the most expensive property in the entire city due to its size and views of the city.
“I don’t care if low-income housing people have a great view,” Councilman Jon Thompson said. And most of the council nodded in agreement with him.
The discussion for affordable housing in the city has been in the background of every council meeting. Currently, the city owns multiple parcels in Sedona that have the proper size for affordable housing units. But the council discussed that Cultural Park’s land provides better features, such as the physical depression of the land, and location for lower-income housing.
“I think it is an ideal location and because of the depression in the property, it does lend itself to more density than other areas,” Councilwoman Holli Ploog said.
After signing an NDA with the private buyer that the property has been in contact with for over six months, Tennyson said he cannot give further details about the property’s future other than the property is under contract to a private buyer.
“The city’s interest is news to me,” Tennyson wrote in an email.
The Cultural Park is a part of the Western Gateway Community Focus Area outlined in the Sedona Community Plan. This CFA states that any building in the area must have the objective of “a balance of lodging and commercial uses that will enhance interaction between residents and visitors.”
But according to the discussion at the City Council’s recent retreat, any purchase by the city would require the undoing of the current CFA.
In the past, many different developers have attempted to acquire the property with the intention of building resorts and hotels. The Dells, already owned by the city but outside city limits west of the city near the Wastewater Reclamation Facility, also has been discussed as a possible site for affordable housing.
Beginning this spring, a master plan for land use will be developed “with a focus on workforce housing and identifying other potential uses that will align with and support other community plans and goals.”
The Cultural Park was not the council’s only discussion of land acquisition at the three-day retreat. Council members discussed $8 million in the budget that will be set aside for possible property purchases in the next year. Council members agreed that staff should not actively seek out properties, but instead monitor properties listed, to be discussed for certain city use.
“Staff is focused on the identification of properties for housing and transit uses, but not acquisitions relative to other specific uses that may be of interest to council, but not on the staff’s radar. Additional direction would be welcome,” the staff report from the retreat stated.
The City Council is holding an executive session before its meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 11. This gives council members the opportunity to instruct staff on how they wish to proceed about the Cultural Park property.
But according to the council retreat documents, since the city must change the zoning of the property from only housing an amphitheater, “that means the final decision about what can be done there will be up to the City Council.”
