By Steve Segner
Sedona, AZ — On Saturday, November 11, starting at 5 p.m. an informational mixer will be held at the Cliff Castle Casino/Hotel Ballroom where the possible reincarnation of the Cultural Park in Sedona will be discussed.
Hosted by a non-profit group interested in its future, the original architects of the Sedona Cultural Park Master Plan will attend to present updates. The question remains: is it better for the community to resurrect the Cultural Park or use the land for workforce housing?
Lets consider the following in exploring the possibility of bringing the Cultural Park back to life:
In 2022, the city purchased the Cultural Park in West Sedona.
The park was proposed in the late 1990s, with the land acquired in 1998. The 5,500-seat theater opened in 2000.
The park has never turned a profit and only stayed in operated because of large donations from well-off residents.
Fast forward 22 years, Sedona purchased the Cultural Park with an eye for workforce housing force, not to re-establish or rebuild the event arena.
The Cultural Park sits on some of Arizona’s most valuable lands, and using some of it for an entertainment facility that would sit unused most of the year makes no economic sense.
Some locals are one again are trying to rebuild an outdoor arena on public lands knowing full well the past history of the Cultural Park,
Let’s look at why the plan is doomed to fall
Questions and Concerns
- Limited Usage Window: Sedona’s peak tourist season is during the mild weather months, which are typically from May to September. This narrow window of usability could indeed limit the number of events that can be hosted throughout the year.
- Local Attendance: In a town of 8,000 residents, the local population will not provide sufficient attendance to sustain regular events, especially if multiple events are planned in a short timeframe. SPAC, the multi million dollar performance center at Sedona high school that can seat over 500 people rarely exceeds 250 guests.
- Lack of Hotel Capacity: You rightly point out that Sedona often runs at or near capacity with its existing hotels, especially on weekends. This means that event attendees would face challenges finding accommodations, potentially deterring visitors.
- Infrastructure and Amenities: Building a million-dollar event center also involves investments in lighting, parking, and other infrastructure. Without these elements, the center may not be attractive to event organizers.
- Competition with Existing Venues: The Sedona Performing Arts Center (SPAC) at the high school already serves as a venue for various events. Doubling up on such facilities without clear demand could be wasteful.
- Operational Costs: Operating an event center requires a significant budget for staff, marketing, and logistics. It’s crucial to consider the ongoing expenses and revenue projections.
- Competition with Phoenix: Phoenix, being a major metropolitan area, has well-established event venues that attract both performers and audiences. Convincing them to choose Sedona over Phoenix could be a challenge.
- Logistical Challenges: Bringing in staging, lighting, and sound equipment from Phoenix could add logistical complexities and costs to event planning.
- Marketing and Promotion: Effectively marketing the event center and drawing audiences from beyond Sedona would be crucial. This requires additional budget and effort.
- Traffic Control: Managing traffic flow during events, especially in a town known for its traffic congestion, would be a significant challenge.
- No political will: or public funds to reestablish the failed .
It’s clear that the viability of a new million-dollar event center in Sedona is not needed .
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33 Comments
Agree 100%. The SPAC is beautiful and has plenty of seating, Sedona needs affordable housing for those who provide the services at our local businesses.
That’s what Sedona needs, low income housing!
It’s a proven fact that people go on vacation to visit cities with low income housing. Sedona should support the homeless also !
Just look what homeless policies have done for San Francisco’s retail and hotel business!
Mike you have zero idea of what you speak of! Absolutely zero low income housing was ever available in SF! This housing isn’t even housing it’s a secure parking lot for employees of places YOU frequent here in Sedona to have a safe place to live in their own vehicles. You seem to have preconceived notions about homeless people that were likely formulated on (self admitted) “Fake” Fox News!
These are fellow M’erican’s not Hamas terrorist!
Work for housing is not low-income housing and we need both,
100% Agree! I started a small business in Sedona 3 yrs ago and our biggest challenge is by far staffing. We pay a good wage but with housing costs so high and limited, there simple aren’t enough people here to hire.
An added entertainment venue should not be considered until businesses have enough employees.
We NEED workforce housing! I own a small business in Sedona and I can barely afford my home on Oak Creek and my condo in Hawaii.
Everyone should chip in, my 2 airb&b units are dedicated to funding my retirement.
We have to help our poor workers.
Karen,
I agree that we need workforce housing and the everyone should chip in as you say.
However not everyone is fortunate enough to own a business and 3 homes and a condo in Hawaii! So perhaps everyone should chip in based upon income and property’s value? That would be the fairest method of solving this crucial issue. Surely those who have multiple Sedona businesses with numerous un housed employees can afford to pay more than the average retiree who do not own multiple properties and businesses.
I’ve got an idea, rather than taxing residents to support businesses, we let the businesses support themselves or go out of business. The people that couldn’t run a profitable business would either leave town making housing available or work for someone who knows how to run a business.
Sounds like free enterprise, naa, couldn’t work.
JB wants everyone to chip in so he can make a profit on his business. The idea of providing goods or a service that someone wants to pay for is a foreign concept.
He should just “work” for the City of Sedona, 4 day weeks, full benefits and great pay. Plus, and JB will love this, everyone is FORCED to chip in.
Hey Tony T.,
think you meant your message to address Karen’s multi home and business ownership not mine, I do not and never have owned a business. I’m a military retiree on disability so your attack on me is misguided and misplaced.
Revisit what I have stated vs. what Karen has stated and I think you’ll see you attacked the wrong person.
Mike H.,
this is NOT about supporting businesses it’s about supporting employees of those businesses which are homeless but providing vital services to the Sedona Community and it’s tourist visitors. How much of these employees tips are taken from their employers? What wages do these employers pay these people? Is it a livable salary ?
Sedona has a number of vacant and or condemned buildings and former motels and hotels that if employers each donated a portion of their PROFITS (nobody stays in business without large profits m) based upon number of unhoused employees employed by them to purchase, renovate and or rebuild these facilities for their employees Sedona would then have a sustainable workforce along with profit earning businesses. As of now there’s a lot of profit and zero sustainability of a workforce.
In fact this is not just a Sedona unique problem it’s a statewide and national problem. Arizona cannot maintain a level of first responder employment. There’s simply not enough enticement to ask people to put their lives on the line to protect us. My suggestion for this issue is to offer property tax exemptions to these crucial workers based upon years of service to their communities and the state.
Arizona claims to be a veteran loving state and it is one of very few states in the nation that does not grant veterans property tax exemptions and the VA and CIVILLIAN healthcare system here in AZ is one of if not the very worst in the nation.
It’s about taking care of those who take care of us and that simply is NOT happening here. Meanwhile the Uber wealthy get their tax breaks (even on donations which are in actuality just tax write offs that result in zero income loss to them) and get to own multiple homes and businesses, yachts, planes etc. while their fellow Americans struggle to have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs.
Maybe Sedona businesses could show the rest of the nation how it cares for its workers by providing them with a living wage and opportunity to reside in the community they work in rather than focusing on tourism profits and tourist attraction expansion at the expense of the worker?
JB can’t recognize sarcasm.
If JB left Sedona he would free up 1 housing unit for someone who wants to work.
Hey JB, how about if we have Sedona recognize indentured servitude? You could have the servants quarters in the stall next to the livestock. Of course JB wants someone else to pay for the servants quarters.
You want the retired residents to only pay a little to support YOUR business. That would be the business that can’t survive without taxpayer support. The business that doesn’t want to pay a living wage. Guess what JB, if you business can’t afford to pay the prevailing wage, it should not be in business.
JB, I’ve owned a couple of businesses. I’ve had to not take a paycheck while starting up a business and during slow periods so I could pay employees.
If you have only been in the military where the mess hall serves 3 squares a day you were not in the real world. Communism doesn’t work.
Tell you what JB, to help the homeless why don’t you give out your couch and spare bedrooms to those living on the street. Show us how it is done JB. Don’t pretend to be generous and caring while spending other peoples money.
And because you are so dense, I don’t own a house on Oak Creek, a condo in Hawaii or two air B&B’s. I have owned small businesses.
You have zero idea about what reality is until you end up in a foreign land and have people trying to kill you and your friends all day every day. Enjoy that business though it’s on us!
So you think the US Military is communist who fight communist’s because they feed us? Ever eat mess hall food? Half frozen burgers for lunch and scrambled eggs complete with the shells is the norm. Think you are the one who is out of touch with reality!
Has anyone asked workers if they want to live in “workforce housing” or do we just assume that if we build it they will come?
Workforce housing is not a type of housing that’s housing that an average worker with two incomes can afford. We’re not talking low income housing as people might think although low income housing will be part of the mix.
Now thats funny…..You want me to ask my friends who live in their cars if they rather sleep in a bed? Are you real? or just lack any and all empathy?
Tyler the Incredible,
they don’t care what these people have to say. In fact they don’t care about them at all unless they accidentally serve their food at the wrong temperature or see them out in public view (forbotten)!
It’s a me me me society today and that’s why it’s failing and is why we have turmoil worldwide.
The un housed Americans in America are not considered human and therefore should not exist in the minds of the haves! And many of them are combat veterans with severe mental health issues as a result of their time serving our country on the frontlines.
It takes on average 20-50 years for VA disability to be approved. In fact I know WWII, Korean and Vietnam war vets who still have not been fairly compensated for the illnesses and injuries they incurred while in combat! This is appalling to say the very least.
I had a WWII Marine Corps veteran in my Veterans Service Organization who had his legs blown off from the knees down. He walks on prosthetics! When he went to the VA Administration located in the Federal Building of his home state following his release from the Corps he found the elevator was out of service and he had to climb 8 flights of stairs to file for disability only to have them ask how he got up to their office? He replied that he had to take the stairs due to the elevator being out. They told him he wasn’t disabled if he could climb stairs and sent him packing!
But some veterans never have to deal with that because they had comfy jobs in the rear with showers, hot food, heat or AC etc. so they look down upon those who did the hard dirty thankless work and likely got the combat medals the grunts clearing the bunkers should have received. A good example of this is Lindsey Graham and Ron DeSantis! Both were JAG attorneys for the military and never saw or heard a shot fired in anger and yet each has a Bronze Star (combat valor medal) for some very very strange reason???
The civilian world is no different! It dumps on the service personnel while rewarding those profiting off their blood sweat and tears!
Mankind should be renamed Man Unable to be Kind!
Mr Segner,
Firstly, if you want to be taken seriously, please proofread your articles and comments, I know elementary school students who have a better command of the English language.
The City of Sedona needs to stay out of the land development arena! It’s not part of their charter, and they have no business buying up land and making plans to build workforce or low income housing! They paid $500k an acre for this land! I can promise building apartments is not going to be a wise financial investment. Clearly city leaders are not realtors or developers and need to stay in their lane!
The previous Cultural Park was poorly managed and combined with nearby residents who complained about noise and many other non-issues, did not fare well. To state that it never turned a profit is categorically untrue.
Your questions and concerns; your “opinion” shared here is mostly inaccurate and misleading.
1. Sedona’s peak season is only May to September?! What a bunch of baloney, a flat out lie! As usual you write whatever you want and try to pass false statements off as facts. I know, since you don’t actually live in City limits, you probably haven’t had to sit in traffic every single weekend since last March.
2. Comparing attendance at SPAC to the Cultural Park is pure folly. Apples and oranges. And once again you have no idea what you’re talking about. Where did you come up with the 250 number? Where did you come up with 8,000 residents? A venue like the Cultural Park, could easily draw residents from the entire Verde Valley, Flagstaff, White Mountains and obviously the greater Phoenix Metro. If Taos, Telluride & Aspen – all with fewer residents can do it, Sedona is a slam dunk.
3. Really? Our hotels are at capacity? Then why all the bitching about AirBnB’s? Is your hotel booked solid for the next year? I call total BS!
4. Wow, so glad you pointed this out! We plan to spend millions developing this property into a profitable event venue, but forgot that we’ll need lights, parking and amenities! If you’re worried about the budget, why are we paying for shuttle busses to the trails and allowing free parking?
5. Competition is ALWAYS good. Maybe SPAC would need to step up their game. Using school employees to run an event facility is never going to create a lot of profitability.
6. This will literally be a cash cow for Sedona. It would also create a number of high paying jobs, add to our already diverse culture and attract more high wealth individuals, who would spend more money and stay longer. So much better than the day trippers the Chamber was bringing in for years.
7. HAHAHAHA! Convincing people to choose Sedona over Phoenix a challenge? There’s nothing in Phoenix that even comes close the Cultural Park, and clearly people are coming to Sedona from Phoenix in droves. Wait until we add something to do at night, instead of rolling up the sidewalks at 6:00!
8. Again, let’s spend millions of dollars to build an event venue and make performers bring their own lights, sound and staging! You’re clutching at straws.
9. For years you had no problem supporting the Chamber’s gift of over $2M a year, for marketing Sedona. Now it’s going to be a challenge? Is that because money would be spent promoting events instead of giving you free marketing for your hotel?
10. Wow! Don’t get me started! The shuttle parking lot for the West side was originally planned for the High School, but was put in the middle of town, and only recently a very small parking area was added in the original spot. The Cultural Park will in no way add to the traffic congestion! This coming from someone who continually bellows that we need more tourists and locals should shut their pie holes about traffic!
11. No Political Will?!?!? The politicians work for the people and if the people in this town want it, then who gives a damn about what the government wants?! This/you are the epitome of what’s wrong with this town! How DARE you spread lies and misinformation, to support your own agenda! You are not a resident! You cheat and vote using your business address!
The City leaders are also misleading the public when they constantly use terms like workforce and low income housing interchangeably, whenever it suits them! No one who is waiting tables, cleaning hotel rooms, or working in a souvenir shop can afford to pay $3000 a month to rent “workforce housing!”
In other parts of the world, service workers live outside of the resort town or retirement community and commute to work.
And NO, I will not chip in to help businesses keep employees so they can bring in more profit. I already chip in my time, every single day while I sit in traffic, because Tlaquepaque North was not forced to build an overpass! Why do our tax dollars pay for crossing guards? Tlaquepaque should be paying for crossing guards and forced to build an overpass or close the crosswalk and make shoppers walk through the new $3M underpass!
And just to make sure you know the facts! The land at the cultural park is not suitable to build residences. Period!
Oh Tony, Tony, Tony why are you back in Sedona’s business? You moved to Cornville to get away from us but you can’t help yourself.
Oh Walter, Walter, Walter,
Do facts and truth frighten you?
The actions of Sedona unfortunately still affect my quality of life. Not as much as when I lived in Sedona and for that I am grateful.
JB,
I ate mess hall food, it was excellent. That was 50 years ago, but the Sunday buffet made me feel like I was at a resort.
I wasn’t dumb enough to volunteer for riverboat duty like Apocalypse Now. I could have, people from my boot camp class did.
I’ve always felt stupid should hurt. Now people want stupid to pay. When the country goes broke your government check will buy enough to give you a choice, a can or beans or a can of beer, not both. Be prepared.
Tony,
sounds like you ate in Navy mess halls that flew in fresh chow every day. REMF’s live high on the hog! I ate in mess halls (when fortunate enough not to be in the field for months on end living out of a rucksack or deployed a year at a time) of all branches and some we’re definitely decent especially Navy and Air Force mess halls. Most Army mess halls/dining facilities are so substandard that the Air Force gives their members extra pay so they can eat elsewhere when assigned to Army bases. I was based in Bad Tolz Germany off and on and the frozen burgers and eggs with shells were served there every day by disgruntled enlisted cooks with attitudes.
I was shocked on my 3rd deployment to see DICK Cheney’s companies Brown and Root, Haliburton (which makes billions fighting fires for states like AZ which lacks its own fire suppression aircraft and has to pay Cal Fire and other outside state agencies to fight our fires at extraordinary expense to Arizona taxpayers) and Log Cap had already set our GP medium and large tents up at our base camp and did all the cooking and laundry for GI’s while taxpayers paid their employees 3-5 times more than what GI’s got paid to do the same thing for themselves! It was a sham and nauseating to the professional grunt and it is still ongoing! Large part of why I left the Army after 15 years service.
But what’s your point? Taking care of the homeless employees of Sedona and fellow Americans (and there are many including employees of City Government) by providing them a safe place where they can park or set up a shelter without fear of being driven out of town simply because folks like you don’t want to see them unless they are serving you!
As for affordable housing for them, nobody including me is saying that the homeless employees of Sedona should get a free house, apartment or whatever. They should pay a REASONABLE monthly rent for whatever safe live able solution may be found vs. a $3,500+ monthly fee to stay in someone’s BnB or finished garage while making minimum wage. Wow that’s pretty extreme huh? And that isn’t even the issue! The issue is whether or not to allow these folks to live in an open lot that has some essence of security vs. having to live in adjacent communities they do not work in or on BLM land or in town where they get run off and are living without access to water, toilets and a sense of security.
But some folks care more about their wallets than their fellow human don’t they? But that’s Dump’s M’erica isn’t it?
I must be stupid then Tony because I volunteered to join the Army out of high school (because I needed and wanted a job), volunteered for Jump School and volunteered multiple times to deploy to combat zones with units other than my own which had deployment refusals who “only joined for the college benefits!” Boy were they smart Tony!
Too bad they weren’t sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to do hard time for a couple of years while those of us who did or jobs did hard time on the battlefield and ended up disfigured and disabled while the deployment refusals got to go back home un punished and live normal lives.
Yep I must be stupid but at least I have morals and fulfilled my obligations to our nation!
Fortunately our youth have woken up to what happens to those who serve their country and enlistment is at an all time low! Unfortunately they will likely end up drafted to fight WWIII and or an US Civil War and ultimately dumped upon worse than had they volunteered. But that’s the M’erican way huh?
I don’t drink alcohol so pass the beans! No wait, you don’t share do you?
JB, one thing I’ve noticed about people that want to share what you have, they never have any of their own to share.
Do you have food to share with your neighbors JB?
Obligation to your nation? Would that be the one that Nuked Japan? Or the one that put Japanese citizens in concentration camps? How about the one that killed all the Buffalo so the Native Americans would not have a food supply? How about the one that knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, but did not tell the military? The one that lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
Read ” War is a Racket” By General Smedley Butler. I even gave you a link. https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket
Never said war was a good thing just said when you sign the dotted line you made a commitment. If you were drafted that is different, your obligation is to survive and that is it. I understand that.
I do share food with my neighbors and frequently buy breakfast for those on the street who are struggling, not the ones who do it by choice.
America has plenty of it was shared equally, but that would be outright true Socialism if that were to happen but never ever has.
I’ve read plenty of military history (one of my favorites is About Face by Col. David Hackworth) and I am not a fan of many things our nation has done but I can say that the intervention in Rwanda and Bosnia Herzegovina was merited and I am proud to have been deployed to a place where I could help stop bloodshed vs. causing it as we did in Iraq and in much of South America in addition to the conflicts you rightly mention as atrocities committed by our government.
Still don’t see what is so difficult about helping your fellow man?
JB, nothing wrong with VOLUNTARILY helping your fellow man. When you vote to take someone’s money and give it to someone else that’s theft. Then the usual case after the government and its insiders take their cut only about 10% get to the designated recipients.
You get things like a tent in San Francisco costing $30,000 per year.
When you vote to tax someone to provide cheap labor to a profit making business that is theft also.
Never said to fund anything through taxation. Perhaps a donation app could be put into the credit card readers of our local business like you see for food banks at the grocery stores?
However, the business owners who have monopolized their businesses here in Sedona and make huge profits off of Sedonites and tourists alike should have to pay their fair share to support things like security guards, trash removal, portable showers and toilets for the lot being considered as place for Sedona’s un housed employees especially since they very likely have the highest number of them under their employment.
Is that stealing? Unfair? I don’t think so. I’d call it a just responsibility.
Tony, you are the perfect example of what is wrong with our country. Its all about you. If I looked up the definition of greed, this post would nail it. I hope to god your not a church person of any faith?
To the person who wrote:
“Tony, you are the perfect example of what is wrong with our country. It’s all about you. If I looked up the definition of greed, this post would nail it. I hope to god you’re not a church person of any faith?”
You know nothing about me or how much I have given to charity.
If you allow the government to control your giving, most of the money taken goes to administration and graft.
Take the Clinton Global initiative, over 90% of what was taken in went to salaries and overhead. That is not uncommon with most organized charities. Usually less than 10% gets to those the giver intended.
If Sedona stated workforce housing, in no time there would be a Director of housing, Assistant Director of housing, housing assistant and housing secretary, all with competitive salaries, full benefits and over a month of vacation and paid days off. A million would be spent before there was a single housing unit.
There are none so blind as those that will not see.
Tents in San Francisco end up costing $60,000 a year. But as long it is taxpayer monies no one gives it a second thought.
Do you trust the government spends your money wisely? If yes, have you been living as a hermit in the forest?
Also, believers capitalize “God.” I do.
SF always had $60K tents and closets and that’s what was and is wrong with it any why it has so many unhoused citizens just like Phoenix AZ which also has sky rocketing crime rates and murders at a level that surpasses that of Detroit (when it was the murder capital of the world), Chicago, DC, NYC, Portland, Boston and Baltimore. So what’s the true cause of that? Desperation? Greed? Joblessness? Homeless? Drugs? Or all of the above? Because it sure has zilch to do with the political leanings of the state and much more about its gun laws or very lack there of in AZ where anything goes gun wise, drug laws which all parties have affected and and more importantly the economy of the state and availability of “affordable housing” of which there is none in most states because tightwad million, billion and trillionares don’t want to share and are hoping to I don’t know, live on Mars when the shite show collapses upon the rest of us?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/S-F-officials-want-15-million-for-tent-sites-16269998.php
https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/S-F-pays-61-000-a-year-for-one-tent-to-house-16001074.php
https://nypost.com/2021/06/26/san-francisco-run-homeless-encampment-costs-60k-per-tentsan-francisco-run-homeless-encampment-costs-60k-per-tent/