The former Big Park Community School property was officially listed for sale online on Jan. 15 on loopnet.com.
“Our broker is actively working with interested parties and has requested that prospective buyers submit their best and highest offers by Jan. 30, 2026,” Tom Swaninger, Ph.D., the Sedona-Oak Creek School District superintendent, wrote on Jan. 21. “Following this deadline, all offers will be forwarded to the business office for initial review and screened to ensure they exceed the floor appraisal value.”
Swaninger said it’s too early to discuss more details about the sale.
The NEWS reported in 2025 that the property was appraised at $9.5 million in April, accounting for $300,000 in deferred roof maintenance. The Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board closed the campus in 2018.
Yavapai County Supervisor Nikki Check [D-District 3] said on Thursday, Jan. 22, there are at least three interested parties.
“Yavapai County itself doesn’t plan on putting in a bid,” Check said during an update to the nonprofit, nongovernmental Big Park Regional Coordinating Council on Jan. 15. “But the underlying zoning’s R1L, because schools don’t need to comply with local zoning, they supersede it.”
R1L is Residential Single-family zoning, so to make the building useful to a bidder for housing, there would have to be rezoning by Yavapai County.
“I do want to sort of assure any bidder at all, that the county would certainly be willing to work with making those changes so that those buildings could be useful in their current form,” Check subsequently said.
Check said she has conversations with interested bidders to explain a bit of the history of the building and the importance of the Community Library Sedona branch inside and to give them more context about the community’s feelings toward the building and site.
The county has an interest in providing services there, she said she tells the interested buyers. These services might include something like what Supervisor Brooks Compton [R-District] 1 is working on in Peeples Valley to make a local multi-use facility and a firehouse and a Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office substation, which Check said is moving ahead successfully.
“But generally speaking, I kind of put forward that we might be interested in anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, depending on, depending on which departments want to provide services there,” Check said. “I think it would be great to have a community health clinic and then a front window to provide kind of a cross-trained service.”
BPRCC leaders later in the meeting approved a position paper on the sale of the property, which stated the nonprofit’s preferences on a portion of the school being used as a community center by the county.
The SOCSD is leasing part of the former school campus to the library for a Village of Oak Creek branch, and a church, the statement acknowledged.
“Additional uses of some of the spaces include a community garden sponsored by the Rotary Club of the Village, Project Fill the Need — a monthly food bank — and book storage for Verde Valley First Books — a nonprofit program aimed at early childhood literacy.”
The paper listed alternative uses like education for adults or pre-kindergarten children, community event spaces and potential sports recreation and wellness facilities for residents.
“We intend to send this to the school district and to the sale broker listing agent, just for their information,” BPRCC President Joe Skidmore said.
Check said if anyone is wondering about any rezoning, there are still avenues to learn more and share opinions.
“Cities recently had their public process removed on … zoning changes,” Check said. “That’s not true for Yavapai County, so we still have our hearing process and our public process in any zoning change, people have the same amount of ability to have their voices be heard.”
