5 ms·

The alternative was bankruptcy. And as the market for street parking vaporizes over the next couple decades, this may end up being a great deal.

by gok 8y ago

fiter 8y ago
This will still be a sour deal. What a waste of urban space to just leave empty parking spots due to the fees for repurposing them.
- gok 8y ago
  Presumably as the market for parking goes away the owners of it will find a more profitable use for the space.
  - fencepost 8y ago
    The ones in buildings and lots, sure, or they'll just set prices lower than street parking. The whole thing is still going to hurt the city by making it not worth going into. I know of "destination" specialty stores that have closed because adding an extra $4+ of parking to the cost of going there to shop made it not worthwhile. I personally was part of a group that used to meet for dinner at different restaurants every week, but Chicago restaurants got dropped from choices because an extra $8-10 on a meal gets you a much nicer (or less expensive) meal in the suburbs with free parking.
  - fiter 8y ago
    The owner of the spots are the city but the owner of the parking meters are this corporation. The city will owe fees if they decide to change usage. So this is a sour deal because now they'll either have to leave them as open spots (waste) or pay this company for lost revenues if they change them (waste).
fencepost 8y ago
How will it be a great deal? For 65 more years Chicago will be on the hook for paving and otherwise not using two lanes worth of road on a huge number of roads. If self driving cars become incredible over the next 20 years, the city goes to all robot cabs and no private vehicles, etc. they will still have to keep those parking spaces or pay the parking vendor for them. For this year the city will be paying $20+ million and it's not getting even the ~24 million it would previously have gotten, so roughly a net -45 million for 2018 alone - and even not counting the money paid by the city the leasing company will have made back its entire purchase price by 2020, leaving 60+ years of pure profit. Chicago got taken so hard that it's now the canonical example of how not to do this kind of thing.

The alternative was bankruptcy. And as the market for street parking vaporizes over the next couple decades, this may end up being a great deal.

by gok 8y ago

The alternative was bankruptcy. And as the market for street parking vaporizes over the next couple decades, this may end up being a great deal.

fiter 8y ago

This will still be a sour deal. What a waste of urban space to just leave empty parking spots due to the fees for repurposing them.

gok 8y ago
Presumably as the market for parking goes away the owners of it will find a more profitable use for the space.
- fencepost 8y ago
  The ones in buildings and lots, sure, or they'll just set prices lower than street parking. The whole thing is still going to hurt the city by making it not worth going into. I know of "destination" specialty stores that have closed because adding an extra $4+ of parking to the cost of going there to shop made it not worthwhile. I personally was part of a group that used to meet for dinner at different restaurants every week, but Chicago restaurants got dropped from choices because an extra $8-10 on a meal gets you a much nicer (or less expensive) meal in the suburbs with free parking.
- fiter 8y ago
  The owner of the spots are the city but the owner of the parking meters are this corporation. The city will owe fees if they decide to change usage. So this is a sour deal because now they'll either have to leave them as open spots (waste) or pay this company for lost revenues if they change them (waste).

fencepost 8y ago

How will it be a great deal? For 65 more years Chicago will be on the hook for paving and otherwise not using two lanes worth of road on a huge number of roads. If self driving cars become incredible over the next 20 years, the city goes to all robot cabs and no private vehicles, etc. they will still have to keep those parking spaces or pay the parking vendor for them. For this year the city will be paying $20+ million and it's not getting even the ~24 million it would previously have gotten, so roughly a net -45 million for 2018 alone - and even not counting the money paid by the city the leasing company will have made back its entire purchase price by 2020, leaving 60+ years of pure profit. Chicago got taken so hard that it's now the canonical example of how not to do this kind of thing.