Civil engineer associations presented city with Project of the Year trophy

Sedona can add “award-winning” the description of Ranger Station Park, the city’s newest community park.

About 50 people, mostly city employees, were in attendance at Ranger Station Park on Brewer Road on Monday, April 20, for the Engineering & Public Works Roadshow — a joint initiative of the American Public Works Association, American Council of Engineering Companies and American Society of Civil Engineers — to present the city with an award. The city park won a 2025 Project of the Year Award from APWA in the Small Cities/Rural Communities in Historical Restoration/Preservation category.

Originally built “as part of the U.S. Forest Services’ early presence in Sedona, Ranger Station Park has long been part of this community’s identity,” APWA spokesman Mark Shade said. “Today, it’s something more. It’s a restored and reimagined public space, one that reflects careful planning, engineering expertise and a commitment to preserving what matters while building for what’s next.”

The city of Sedona purchased the 3.4 acres that make up the park in 2014, which includes USFS Ranger Station House, built in 1917. It is the oldest surviving building within the city limits. The Ranger Station Barn was constructed in 1934; both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Development of the park wasn’t without hurdles. The southern portion of the park is bisected by a Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated floodplain, requiring a master plan redesign. Hazardous materials needed remediation before groundbreaking and drainage systems had to be engineered around the buildings while creating green space.

Facilities Maintenance Supervisor “Larry Farhat and I spearheaded it and got it to this place from nothing,” Assistant Director of Public Works Sandra Phillips said — she recently retired after starting working with the city in June 2021. “Larry started with the exterior renovation of the buildings and demolition of existing structures. When I came on we were doing the grading. We had no bids originally, so we broke up the plans and fine-tuned them. I also had to redesign the landscape plan — the original didn’t account for any of the existing trees, so we made sure they were all worked around.”

“We have worked collaboratively with our Historic Preservation Commission, and our Sedona Historical Society” to create this park, Mayor Holli Ploog said. “So this is a labor of love between the folks who care about … the preservation of these beautiful artifacts, and the city and to be recognized by a APWA is just wonderful.”

“More than 20 rangers dutifully served the Sedona District from this ranger station,” Historic Preservation Commission Chairman Nate Meyers said. “I would like to share a little about one ranger, William L. Holmes, who served in this station from 1957 to 1963.”

Holmes “learned forestry from his commanding officer during World War II,” Meyers said. “After the war, he attended forestry school in Colorado on the GI Bill and began his career as a forest ranger in the Flagstaff office of the Coconino National Forest.”

On hand for the ceremony was Holmes’ daughter Allyson Holmes who recounted to the NEWS growing up at the site.

“Our house was right over there, it [was] cinder block house,” she said point to what is now a line of trees between the park’s two turn-ins along Brewer Road. “We moved into it in 1956 we were the first family in there. When we left Sedona and moved to Prescott, it turned into the Ranger Station office, and it was the Ranger Station office till not that long ago, till we built the new one out on [State Route] 179.”

Holmes helped advocate for the park, and said she was thrilled to see the park realized.

“We just ran wild,” Holmes said soon after several children made use of the park’s playground. “Living here at the ranger station, the Brewer Road School was just across the street. That was the grade school. So we could just walk across the street, go to school and we could walk directly to the creek, because none of this was here.”

A shade structure over the children’s play equipment, similar to the park ramada at Posse Grounds and Sunset parks, is scheduled be installed by mid-June, according to the Sedona Parks & Recreation Department.