The city of Sedona has issued a request for proposals from design firms to help develop a new master plan for the Sedona Cultural Park, which it purchased in December 2022.
Proposals must be submitted by Thursday, April 25, and the top candidate will be announced on Tuesday, May 7. The city will interview the proposers the week of Monday, May 13, and City Council is tentatively scheduled to approve a contract with the winning firm on May 28. The process is intended to produce a new master plan by Aug. 28, 2025.
The RFP states that the new plan should address the following issues, in this order:
- Implementation of the goals of the Community Plan and Western Gateway Community Focus Area plan. The 2013 Community Plan called for the Cultural Park to be developed “to meet the need for cultural and performing arts facilities in the community,” including recreation of the amphitheater and buildout of an indoor performing arts center and arts village with a maximum of 40 live-work units. The 2023 Community Plan, which the City Council adopted on March 26, eliminated the previous plan’s arts and culture options, and stated council plans “to ensure that future development on what is Sedona’s largest, undeveloped property in the city limits, will accommodate a variety of housing types, sizes and cost.”
- The need for “a variety of housing types”
- The most appropriate complementary uses for housing
- The creation of community space complementing the property’s other uses
- The “identification of the best uses in the best locations”
- Strategic land use
- Installation of a transit stop and multimodal paths
- Access to forest trailheads
- Sustainable building practices
The RFP also provides that “the consultant shall propose/submit a broad-based public participation process” to gather community views and defines this as likely consisting of “two to three public outreach meetings.”
In addition, the RFP specifies that it does not include “the approximately 5.25 acres of Phase I, addressed as 40 Cultural Park Place.” The city had previously issued an RFP for a workforce housing development on the northeast corner of the park on Oct. 12 and received two proposals.
Based on available city documents, one of these submissions, from Kelwoods Development, proposed an unspecified number of units at the site with a construction cost of $15.4 million. The other, from HS Development Partners, would have added 72 units at the Cultural Park in conjunction with their proposed 30-unit development on Shelby Drive, which is priced at $14 million, for a total cost for both projects of $37,818,329.
Housing Manager Shannon Boone notified council with regard to the previous RFP that “none of [the developers] had projects they could fund today” during its discussion of the proposed homeless worker car camp at the northwest corner of Sedona Cultural Park, called “Safe Place to Park.”
Background
Approved in 2016, the Western Gateway CFA called for a combination of lodging, commercial and housing development at the Cultural Park complementary to performing arts and educational uses. The City Council amended the CFA plan on Aug. 10, 2022, removing references to lodging and performing arts development and redefining the area as being intended for multifamily housing.
The elements of the park’s master plan approved in 1995 included a 120,000-square-foot outdoor amphitheater, 105,000 square feet of festival grounds, an interpretive terrace, a small amphitheater, a 5.5-acre arts village with 100,000 square feet of buildings and 41,000 square feet of terraces and plazas.
The 41-acre Sedona Cultural Park, owned and operated by a nonprofit, closed in 2004. Mike Tennyson, of Custer, S.D., bought the property shortly thereafter.
The Sedona City Council voted unanimously to approve the purchase of the Sedona Cultural Park and to issue excise tax bonds to pay for part of the purchase at its meeting on Nov. 22, 2022.
