Business at the Millennium Park garage appears headed for a double-digit increase for 2004 even as the Daley administration plans a rate increase that promises to squeeze additional revenue out of the facility.
The financial health of the garage is critical because the money it generates is used to pay off bonds used to finance construction of the new park.
So far, revenues from motorists have not covered the twice-a-year payments to bondholders, and the city has been forced to tap other sources of funds.
Through October, the garage attracted slightly more than 518,000 customers, up more than 11 percent from the same period of 2002.
Officials said the 2,186-space facility is full during the day Mondays through Fridays, with unused capacity at other times.
“There is a lot more that is going to be happening at the park as more amenities open,” said Lisa Schrader, a spokeswoman for the city’s Budget Department. “I think it is a reasonable expectation that evening and weekend parking will continue to grow.”
The new Harris Theater for Music and Dance held its inaugural event in November, and other new elements of the park, including the Frank Gehry-designed bandshell, sculpture and a fountain and reflecting pool are expected to be completed in the coming months as finishing touches are put on the park.
The higher parking rates, proposed by Mayor Richard Daley at a City Council meeting Dec. 17, are designed to reflect the market rather than pump up revenue to meet debt-service obligations, insisted Revenue Director Bea Reyna-Hickey. A survey found that rates charged at the facility were less than those at competing downtown garages, she said.
“At $12 a day, Millennium is still a bargain for motorists compared to other garages in the Loop area,” Reyna-Hickey said.
Under Daley’s proposal, the rate for parking for less than 12 hours, including tax, would climb to $12 from $10, while the 12-to-24-hour rate would increase to $15.75 from $13. The rate for monthly parkers would go up by $10 to $210.
Stretching from Randolph Street to Monroe Street, from Michigan Avenue to Columbus Drive, Millennium Park is being built over Metra commuter rail tracks. The city’s cost for the project has risen from an estimated $120 million when the park was announced by Daley in 1998 to $270 million.
Park bondholders last July received checks totaling slightly more than $4 million. But available revenue from the garage at the time of the payout was only about $2.5 million.
Another bond payment is scheduled for January, but Schrader was unable to say whether parking proceeds will be sufficient to cover it.
In 2001, Daley drew criticism for tapping $3.4 million from a special downtown economic development fund to supplement parking revenues to make debt payments. Subsequently, City Hall used proceeds of a creative financing deal called an interest rate swap with the firm of Bear Stearns to supplement parking fees.
The deal proved so advantageous to the city that the Wall Street investment-banking firm last year paid a $12.6 million fee to opt out of it.
