By Tasha Anderson for AZBEX
RD Olson Development recently submitted plans to the City of Sedona for the design and construction of a new boutique hotel at 150 Schnebly Hill Road.
The 11.58 acre-property is bounded by Schnebly Hill Road, Oak Creek, and Bear Wallow Lane. The developer applied for preliminary conceptual review for the project, known as Oak Creek Resort. The application is currently undergoing staff review.
Oak Creek Resort is proposed as a 92-key boutique style hotel and spa, “where guest and locals can refresh, revive, and reconnect,” according to the project documents. “The resort will be offering creek and rock formation view guestrooms with a signature restaurant, destination Spa, and small meeting facilities.” The hotel is not yet branded.
The resort will include a cluster of different sized buildings to break down the massing. Near the southern portion of the site and adjacent to the creek, the developer will house three-story buildings, then transition to two-story and single-story buildings near the road and northern portion of the property.
The guestrooms will be housed in three-story and single-story buildings while the 4.5KSF restaurant will be in a two-story building.
The spa will include approximately eight treatment rooms and the meeting space will total +/-3.9KSF. Other amenities include a wellness center, resort pool and a large, walkable public open space.
Oak Creek’s design will be, “to create simple refined structures that don’t compete with the views and the surrounding beauty,” the documents state. “We will use natural materials and express them in the way they were historically utilized.”
Access to the site will be from one driveway, with all cars being valet parked, and a fire access connecting to Schnebly Hill Road. Landscaping will reinforce the agricultural and rural history of the property and the 40-foot open space setback will screen the road from the resort and save as many trees as possible.
“We feel that is one of our advantages to have a diverse environment within the site. Our site planning along with working with natural grade is also respecting the creek by stepping back from the floodway on many of the structures not only to accommodate high water but to open up views up and down the creek for as many of our hotel and restaurant guests as possible.”
Building Hotels in Sedona a Difficult Process
During the BEX Virtual Leading Market Series event on Hospitality back in June, Cari Meyer, Planning Manager for City of Sedona, discussed that while there is interest in building hotels in Sedona, it is a more difficult process. (AZBEX_June 4th, 2021)
She noted that the city removed lodging as a use and that Sedona doesn’t quite have enough land to build on. “There’s no large parcels available,” she said.
The community in Sedona also sees hotels as bringing in more people and more traffic issues, and Meyer talked about future hotel projects needing to be part of a mixed-use development, to address those current housing and traffic issues.
The Oak Creek Resort project still needs to go before the Sedona Planning & Zoning Commission; however, no meetings have been scheduled.
