The Sedona City Council and the Sedona Fire District Governing Board held a joint meeting on Sept. 25 to discuss possible land exchange options that would allow SFD to relocate its Station 4, currently located at 391 Forest Road in Uptown. 

The city-owned parcel mainly being considered for such a land swap is 401 Jordan Road, which is a 1.75-acre site built as Valley Bank in 1973 that the Sedona Chamber of Commerce acquired in 2017 with city funds and transferred to the city in May 2021, and is now used as an overflow city parking lot. SFD Chief Ed Mezulis said that if SFD were to acquire the 401 Jordan property, a fire station would take up most of the site. 

“Probably the north side would be dedicated to more public parking than we normally would provide at a fire station,” Mezulis said. “Because we know there’s the businesses in Uptown, so you wouldn’t lose all those parking spots, but a majority of them. But to appropriately lay out the station as a single-story … it would [take up] most of the property.” Principal Planner Cynthia Lovely said that a private developer has expressed interest in building a workforce housing project at 401 Jordan Road. 

“We let [the developer] know that this conversation was happening today, and to wait and see whether or not this parcel was going to be of further interest to the fire board and the council, and depending on whether it stays on the table or not, we would then be issuing an RFP to select a developer,” Lovely said. 

Councilman Brian Fultz said that if the city were to exchange the Jordan property with SFD, it wouldn’t be a “big sacrifice at this point” because it was purchased before council voted in November 2022 to purchase the Sedona Cultural Park. 

Vice Mayor Holli Ploog asked what land SFD had available to swap with the city, and Mezulis said that while most of the district’s properties are outside the city limits, he imagined that its parcel at 431 Forest Road could be traded, provided that SFD could retain a communications tower on a separate 0.13-acre parcel adjacent to the existing Station 4. 

The 431 Forest property is currently leased to the city for use as a parking lot, and the joint meeting also considered the possibility of SFD building a new station on that site to replace the one next door. 

Mezulis said that doing so would also require SFD to acquire two adjacent parcels, 461 Forest, owned by Chai Spot LLC, and 441 Forest, owned by Sal DiGiovanni. 

Mezulis repeated several times during the meeting that DiGiovanni has no interest in selling his property. 

“What if we had 461 and didn’t have 441, would there still be an ability to do a station?” SFD Governing Board Clerk Corrie Cooperman asked during the meeting. “Not really,” Mezulis responded. “We’d essentially build the same thing we have now, but in a different spot.” 

Deputy City Manager Andy Dickey suggested the possibility of condemning those properties. City staff during the meeting said they can provide condemnation experience. 

Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow subsequently said that the city is focusing more on the property of 401 Jordan Road for Station 4. “I don’t know about fire districts in particular, but generally any special district does have the power of condemnation,” city attorney Kurt Christianson said. 

Other locations that city staff considered during their preliminary assessment included the area surrounding 221 Brewer Road, as well as 260 Schnebly Road, the current location of the city’s main Uptown parking lot, which council rejected as a possibility. 

“The other thing that we had on our list as potential, but totally preliminary, is the [Sedona-Oak Creek School District] property where we have court and city offices,” Lovely said. “It’s a relatively good-sized parcel that goes back behind the building. There could be opportunities there as well. So that one was kind of brought up relatively last minute, so we don’t have an indepth analysis, but it doesn’t mean that that couldn’t be explored more.” 

Mezulis said that there are drainage issues behind the 221 Brewer Road property and that “we just heard potentially, we’re looking at 2030 before we’re starting.” 

While a potential location in the Brewer Road area hasn’t been identified, it would allow quick access to 89A and Uptown once the Forest Road extension is complete, but the downside is that it would take the station outside of Uptown, Mezulis stated, adding that moving to Brewer Road would not affect the area’s Insurance Service Organization rating because it would not change SFD’s road mile statistics. 

Station 4 Relocation History 

“I personally started this process of evaluating Station 4 with a lot of effort in the fall of ’23 and started a conversation with the previous city manager, Karen [Osburn],” SFD Chief Ed Mezulis said before crediting Osburn’s replacement Anette Spickard for setting up the joint meeting. “To my knowledge, this is the first time ever in the history of the town incorporating or the fire district, we’ve ever had a joint meeting.” 

Mezulis added that one of his and the SFD Governing Board’s major initiatives has been to place a discussion about Station 4 on the city council agenda since taking over as head of SFD in September 2022. 

Discussions about constructing a new Station 4 have gone on for decades to no avail. In 2017, 56% of voters rejected SFD’s request for a $17.9 million bond to replace Station 4 in Uptown and relocate Station 5 in Oak Creek Canyon. After spending several years building up capital reserves, SFD is returning to its plans for building two new stations. 

“SFD has a fully-funded 10 year capital plan with $7.79 million in reserves at the start of this year,” Mezulis subsequently said. “For Station 4, we are planning $10 million with a combination of cash and financing but will not know the true cost until we solidify the location of the station.” 

“You said you’ve been saving money; is that enough to cover construction or land acquisition and construction, and how pessimistic have you gotten about the cost? Because we’ve gotten our hearts broken over and over again on the cost of building things,” Fultz asked Mezulis. 

“Fire station costs, city costs for municipal buildings has gone up 200% since 2012, and I have made the governing board aware of that reality,” Mezulis said. “My personal opinion, is that costs aren’t going to go down … but we’re in a good financial position to accomplish [this]. These aren’t wants … this is something we’ve needed since ’96.” 

SFD’s stated goals are to acquire a new station with a 50-year lifespan with drive-through bays, greater separation between living quarters and work areas, direct access to the apparatus bay from the station’s living quarters, exhaust systems and community space for public meetings and sustainability. 

“It wasn’t built for people to live in,” Mezulis said of the current Station 4, built in 1972, which is now smaller than current fire station design standards dictate, has a foundation crack down the engine bay and has living quarters located above the engine bay. Mezulis added that he would like a single-story station. “When I started [at SFD], the bedroom I slept in had a sliding glass door … because my bedroom was a patio before they enclosed it. We have another bedroom currently at the station that was a living room, and then it was a weight room, but then the weight started collapsing the floor … For most of the bedrooms, you have to go through four doorways to get to the apparatus bay … Seconds count in an emergency, and every door you have to go through, and every stairwell you have to go down, it adds time to you getting out the door in the fire truck.” 

SFD and the city have agreed to schedule another joint meeting in approximately two months to continue exploring location options.