More than a year after then-Mayor Kip Holden selected a team of three firms to modernize and manage downtown’s public parking system, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome says the proposal is too expensive and the city-parish needs to revisit the issue.
Darryl Gissel, the mayor’s chief administrative officer, says the plan to overhaul and manage the parking at three city-owned garages as well as install a system of new smart parking meters “remains under review” but that current income and expense figures are not satisfactory for moving forward at this time.
In September 2016, Holden’s administration issued a request for proposals from firms interested in modernizing and running the downtown parking system, which has been criticized as inefficient, outmoded and insufficient to meet demand. Two months later, it selected a team headed by Lanier and Associates.
A contract, however, was never negotiated much less finalized, and when the Broome administration took office in January, it began trying to put together a deal. Complicating the process was the months it took for the city to get a handle on what its expenses would be under the deal. Among those expenses would be the purchase and installation of all the new automated equipment for the garages.
Gissel, who took over as CAO in October, says the original RFP did not include the purchase of the equipment or smart meters needed for the system overhaul. After reviewing the data and meeting with the proposed contractors, Gissel says the city determined projected income from parking revenues would not be sufficient to cover the city’s expenses.
Under the terms of the deal proposed by the Lanier team, the management firm would receive a base management fee of $48,000 per year, and an incentive management fee of 35% of parking revenues in excess of $1.25 million a year, and 25% of revenues in excess of $1.6 million a year.
“As it stands today we are examining options that might be available, as the current cost figures are not deemed acceptable,” he says.
Separately, the city is planning to move forward with a plan to buy smart meters. Bid specifications for the meters are expected to be issued in early 2018.
“A well run parking system is important to the citizens who use it and the revenue stream is important to the city-parish budget,” Gissel says. “We need to get it right.”
—Stephanie Riegel
