The construction of Phase I of the proposed Ranger Station Park is now out to bid and the construction plans are anticipated to be finalized in the next few weeks. 

Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in July or August, Sedona Assistant Public Works Director Sandra Phillips informed the Historic Preservation Commission on April 10.

“While the [park’s] master plan has been complete for several years, it is high-level and the construction plans include all the exact details of where everything will be located, based on the master plan,” Sedona Communications and Public Relations Manager Lauren Browne said. “These construction plans will be used by the contractor to build out this first phase.”

The city of Sedona purchased the old Ranger Station at 250 Brewer Road in 2014 and subsequently created a master plan for the 3.4 acres in 2016 that included preservation of the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station house and barn, both of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“The construction of Phase I … involves grading and drainage, green space, a parking lot, a shared use pathway, picnic tables and some benches,” Browne said. “This is Phase I of a multi-phase plan for this park. Later phases will include installation of a restroom, interior remodel of house and barn and other amenities as the city sees how the public utilizes this community park.”

Because the city has decided to make the station a “dawn-to-dusk park,” it will not be installing parking at this time. Current construction plans also do not include restoring the interiors of the historic buildings.

However, the city has found an architect with a background in historic preservation who will begin working on interior plans in June or July for the city to present to the Historic Preservation Commission at a later date. The interior plans could go before council this fall to be completed for fiscal year 2024, Phillips said.

“The city [of Sedona] is almost finished redoing the barn and they’ve completed the outside of the ranger station,” Historic Preservation Commission member Bob Huggins said. “Now the question is what to do with the inside of the ranger station. I personally want to see it restored to a 1920s ranger station and then be able to take tours through it. “In the barn, I’ve proposed that they put up large exhibits on each one of [the federal] land managing agencies, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and talk about what their responsibilities are in the management of our public lands.”

The city’s public outreach process in 2015 resulted in a call for construction of a 10-foot-wide shared-use path made of stabilized granite around the entire park; however, a number of changes have been made to that proposal.

“We found since the master plan was completed [that] there’s a FEMA floodplain that goes through this area. And the drainage and accommodating that drainage was not shown on the master plan,” Phillips said. “That’s part of some of the changes that we’ve had to make, and it became very obvious with the rainfall events [this spring].”

 Another change proved to be more unpopular when three proposed pickleball courts were scrapped “to consolidate new pickleball courts at Posse Grounds Park, and to make way for a new exit driveway from Los Abrigados to Brewer Road,” according to the city’s master plan website.

“We just wanted activity in the Brewer area,” resident Jina Geurts said. “We get stuck down on that road a lot, and it’s hard to get out of the neighborhood. We felt like it’d be great if we had a place where we could just go hang out.”

Geurts added that they felt Brewer residents should be able to socialize more locally in order to avoid contributing to traffic congestion and suggested activities for a general audience at the park, including bocce ball, horseshoes or cornhole.

In 1905, William Wallace, a ranger for what would become the Coconino National Forest Forest Preserve, relocated to Sedona and established the area’s first ranger station. For approximately 12 years, the two-room log cabin doubled as a residence and ranger station, according to Huggins.

The cabin had fallen into disrepair by 1915, when District Ranger Jesse Bushnell moved into the station and requested appropriations for repairs and the construction of an outhouse. This coincided with District Forester Coert DuBois realizing that the Forest Service lacked

formal architectural plans for its facilities, which led to the development of the “1-D plan.”

“In 1917 Dubois developed a plan for a simple one- or two-bedroom wood frame, clapboard siding Craftsmanstyle bungalow residence that could be built ‘for $112’ labor plus materials,” Huggins related. “The new 1-D plan was sent to all Forest Service offices as a directive.” 

That same year, Bushnell finally received the funding he had requested in combination with the 1-D plans and completed the station building, which is now the “oldest surviving structure within the city limits,” according to Sedona’s 2014 Historic Resource Survey.

Huggins noted that the station has the additional distinctions of being the very first example of the 1-D style and the oldest such example of the style in existence and is probably “the only one built by a ranger and not a contractor.”