Vacant building at 401 Jordan getting some use before being torn down to make way for new fire station

Verde Valley Regional SWAT team, the Sedona Police Department and the Sedona Fire District helped the building at 401 Jordan Road go out with a flash bang throughout Monday, Aug 24, as law enforcement first-responders used the building as a scenario training ground.

The building will be razed sometime in September to make way for a new SFD Fire Station 4, which is being relocated from the aging station on Forest Road.

“It’s rare that we have a building that’s going to be demolished that we can work in and not be as careful, Sedona Police Chief Stephanie Foley said. “This one allows us to damage it as much as we need to.”

The ability to use a building slated for demolition gave officers more freedom for their training scenarios, such as being able to break glass and some of the structure—so rather than talking though a simulated forced entry, the teams could breach walls and doors as they might in an actual emergency.

“If we have a barricaded person in there who’s armed and refusing to come out, it’s dangerous to other people in the building,” Acting Patrol Cmdr. Jason Young said, explaining the benefits of the vacant building. “We have to approach and break a window so that we can get a phone in there for negotiators.”

The SWAT team comprises personnel from partner agencies. Among the training participants from across the Verde Valley agencies was Stevie the Cottonwood Police Department’s newest K-9 officer, who is certified in narcotics detection and fugitive apprehension, and his handler, CPD officer Connor Rafferty.

“Officer Rice from Cottonwood has been volunteered to be the ‘bite guy,’ so he’s putting on the dog suit right now,” Young said ahead of SWAT running an apprehension scenario, using a flashbang to enter the building and having Stevie subdue Rice so SWAT could make the mock arrest.

“We use the K-9s a lot, they’re a great tool for things like this, they help us control a lot of things,” Young said. “We have them [a barricaded person] just come out when they hear a flashbang. We also have the K-9.

They actually love to do this, they get very excited about it. They actually get worked up, and if they don’t get a bite, you have to calm them down a little afterwards.”

While SPD’s K-9 officer Sam specializes in drug detection and search-and-rescue, SWAT uses bite-capable dogs from neighboring agencies.

SWAT exercises on Monday’s scale are infrequent. Foley said that she believes that last similar training in scale was about three years ago at a church in Cottonwood with various agencies, but routine training is a regular occurrence.

“To make emergency responses as safe as possible, each member of the regional SWAT team must get 20 hours of training a month,” the city stated. “Our SPD does situation-based training monthly. There are also frequent, joint planning and exercises with many other response agencies.”

The city’s public communications also used Monday for its own scenario training.

“Our Communications team this morning—we’ve been practicing our crisis response activities, like what we would initially do like situation assessment, identifying who’s at risk, how we’re going to get the word out, using Nixle, the other sort of geofenced notification systems,” city spokeswoman Julie Graham said. “So just thinking about how we’re going to get the word out if this were a real situation.”

SFD Stations

The city voted to sell SFD the building and land for $2.3 million on Feb. 11, 2025. Demolition permits are due in late September or early October, SFD Chief Ed Mezulis said, at which time crews will bring in excavators and take the building apart. The asbestos has already been remediated out of the structure.

Lot preparation follows, including trucking in about three feet of fill dirt, and “in a perfect world” concrete could be down by January, Mezulis said. SFD’s’s design is complete and has been submitted to the city, and he said he is targeting a November 2027 ribbon cutting.

Upon completion of the new Station 4, Mezulis said SFD will start focusing on relocating Station 5 in Oak Creek Canyon, currently located at 3971 SR 89A at Indian Gardens. Mezulis said the location is too small for a modern fire station and SFD desires to have a station more centrally located in the canyon to improve response times.

“If we move it further north in the canyon … It has the potential to lower insurance rates because of the changes in where the station is.” Mezulis said. “Even just moving it a couple miles positively impact insurance rates.”

SFD hopes to relocate Station 5 to Slide Rock State Park but that is a multi-year process with no definitive next steps and that effort has stalled for decades. Additionally “in the next decade” SFD Station 1 in West Sedona is “going to need a remodel.”