The Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority, approved Sedona Airport staff to move forward during its meeting on Monday, June 22, with a plan to sell memorial bricks to fund a brick floor beautification effort for the Airport Overlook.
The area SOCAA is looking to cover is 50 feet by 150 feet, estimatedat about 33,750 bricks overall.
Board Director Michael Schoeder gave a presentation to the board on the proposal, which includes selling memorial bricks at about $150 each.
The airport has already sold a few, Schoeder said the morning of Wednesday, June 24. He doesn’t have a timeline for when the bricks would be laid, but they work in intervals of 512 bricks at a time, because that’s how many are in a pallet.
Generally, money the airport raiseshas to go to the direct operations and maintenance of the airport, Schroeder said. So the $3 parking fees for the gravel lot near the overlook goes to the General Operating Fund of the airport, not to a fund for beautification of an overlook that doesn’t benefit the planes or pilots flying into or off of Sedona’s runway.
The exception is when there’s a special project like this separate from the airport operations.
For this reason, Schroeder said the wall at the overlook now was built from a donation by Geoffrey Roth, a pilot at the Sedona Airport who used to be on the SOCAA board but now spends most of the year in Montana.
Extra funds that come in through the memorial brick program could help fund future projects as well, Schroeder said, like possibly adding a permanent vendor space in the future or helping fund an improved parking space, which is currently gravel.
Schroeder estimated the total cost of this project at $813,600, and a possibility of raising over $5 million.
He said it will be an ongoing project, in which people can continue to buy memorial bricks until there’s no more available, laying one pallet at a time. Each brick gets two or three lines to engrave, depending onwhich manufacturer the airport contracts.
Each donor will receive a photo of the brick after it’s installed and a letter with the details on when it was installed and when they purchased it, so they can keep a record if they decide to deduct it from their taxes, which they have the option to do.
SOCAA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that operates the Sedona Airport in Sedona city limits under a long-term lease agreement with Yavapai County, the land’s property owner.
Ed Rose, the airport’s general manager, said the airport authority will see more proposals for traffic in the future.
“We do have plans to redesign traffic flow to get cars off Airport Road,” he wrote. “This request will be on the August agenda.”
