After being on and off the real estate market for nearly a decade, one of the largest pieces of privately-owned land near Sedona has sold.
The sale of El Rojo Grande Ranch, which sits on approximately 173 acres off State Route 89A west of Sedona, became final on Wednesday, June 9, according to Ed Pennington.
He and Jeanette Sauer were the agents for the seller, Ingrid Hills.
Sedona broker Roy Grimm represented the land’s new owners, who wish to remain unidentified at this time. The property was purchased through a limited liability corporation by a family from Washington state. The final sale price was $14,750,000.
“I feel this is incredibly good for the seller, incredibly good for the buyer and incredibly good for the community,” said Pennington, who has been the agent of record for the past five years for the property. “Ingrid’s recently received five to six strong offers from developers and we have shown the property probably 50 times. But she was waiting for someone who wanted to basically keep the land as is while protecting the flora and fauna.”
He said that’s exactly what the buyers have planned. While he doesn’t know their exact intent, he said he does know the buyers want to keep it as a single-family property along with its guest houses and equestrian facility. Pennington said while developers had offered “substantially more” than the asking price, Hills received close to what she was looking for.
El Rojo Grande was on the minds of many Verde Valley residents two-and-a-half years ago. At that time, Equity LifeStyle Properties, a Chicago-based retirement community and manufactured home builder, was seeking to purchase the property with the eventual plan to have 600 mobile home sites and an additional 50 RV spaces.
Yavapai County officials at the time said they had never seen that kind of community response, either for or against, to a project.
In that case, more than 300 people turned out to show their opposition during the January 2019 Yavapai County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. In that meeting, the commission voted unanimously to not recommend the project to the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors, which was set to hear the matter on Feb. 20, 2019. However, prior to that meeting, Equity LifeStyle Properties withdrew its application and the sale of the land never went through.
The biggest concerns of those opposed included traffic, no city services on the property, character of the neighborhood, impact on the environment and viewshed, workforce housing, age restrictions, ingress/ egress during emergencies, density, fire concerns, flooding, lot size and decrease in neighboring property values — to name just a few.
“I think the handwriting was on the wall,” former Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Randy Garrison said after the withdrawal of the application. “It was nice to see that the developer listened to the voice of the people and commission and withdrew their application.”
