The Timeshare Beat: Midtown hotel-spa project OK’d without woodstoves

Midtown hotel-spa project OK’d without woodstoves

by Terri Likens Staff Writer
Sedona Red Rock News
June 29, 2001
A proposal to concentrate dozens of wood-burning stoves at a planned midtown hotel development went up in smoke Tuesday.

The developer of the 88-unit Sedona Hotel and Spa announced that the rooms would be fitted with gas fireplaces instead. The change of plan wasn’t enough to dissipate some residents’ displeasure with the project, but city council members approved a zoning change to allow it with a 7-0 vote.

The vote didn’t reflect how some council members appeared to wrestle with the Hwy. 89A hotel-restaurant project, however.

Councilman Tom Beshaw said the city has 1,766 lodging rooms in the city and about 800 “in the pipeline.”

Beshaw bemoaned the fact that the city’s community plan doesn’t quantify lodging.

“How much do we really want, how much do we need and how much can we support responsibly?” he said. “It depends on how much of the city you want to be the tourists’ and how much you want to be ours.”

“I think pretty soon we need to be pulling in the reins,” Beshaw said.

“Right now, I’m on the cusp of whether we should be develop-ing more at all.”

Councilman Steve Nahmanson said he saw no need for city officials to restrict the number of hotel units built in tow.

“I’m real comfortable with letting the market drive that,” he said.

Sedona developer Terri Gorton and her partners have touted the project as a four-star hotel — a place where many of the guests will eat on-site and stay longer than the typical Sedona visitor.

However Councilman Paul Tutnick was able to get the developers to admit that they are working on a contract with the managers of the Fairfield timeshares to use about a third of the rooms for prospective timeshare customers.

“That just seems a little different than the four-star you’ve been touting to us,” Tutnick said.

Gorton said Fairfield currently houses prospective customers in the Village of Oak Creek and prefers to have them closer.

“It would be nice to have the bed tax here in Sedona and less traffic” on Hwy. 179, she added.

History may have swayed the council in favor of the zoning change from commercial to lodging.

Gorton and city officials said a narrow parcel of property that will be used for the project had been approved for much denser development under a special agreement.

The city made the agreement with developer John D. Miller because the city needed a 25-foot-wide strip from the parcel to widen Rodeo Road.

Because the land that was left would not have been able to support much development under city codes, city officials agreed to give Miller leeway on the remaining parcel.

If they had not, Miller could have argued that the city had rendered the remnant useless and pushed the city to pay for the land.

Even with the sale of the property, the agreement for denser retail development would have remained in place. Gorton said she would allow the city to rescind that agreement.

Mayor Alan Everett said the project’s benefits outweighed any potential problems.

He said the three-story buildings on the site met city height regulations.

Lot coverage on the project is only 16 per-cent, well below the 25 percent allowed, he noted.

He also said that traffic from a hotel would probably be lighter than traffic from some other retail use.

“As I analyze this situation, I see this as a good project that has come forward,” Everett said.

Opponents to the Sedona Hotel and Spa project nearly filled the city council chambers.

Some carried signs that said “Stop air pollution,” reflecting their belief that the wood-burning stoves were still part of the plan.

Even after Gorton announced that the stove issue had been dropped, speaker after speaker approached the stand to denounce the project.

Among them was Sedona resident Judith Cox.

“The project is very handsome, but it’s wrong for that corner,” Cox said. “It makes for an overly dense corner in an area that is much too trafficked anyhow.”

Dixie Robeson referred to the community plan’s mention of “small-town character” and how projects should be developed to keep that character.

“The thing that scares me and makes me very sad is everybody says they want to keep our small-town ambience,” she said.

“It’s gone. I came here 33 years ago and it was paradise. Now it is a congested mess.”

Nahmanson agreed, in part, on the “small-town” reference. “The “small-town atmosphere” reference, I think we’re kidding ourselves even putting in the plan,” he said, but added, “We do maintain our small town atmosphere off 89A.”

The Prime Cut restaurant currently at the site will be torn down to make way for the project.