Car park's first-year revenues fall short

City officials say it will take activity at other Jordan Valley Park facilities, such as Hammons Field and a planned arena, to make the car park profitable.

“We didn’t anticipate that it would actually cash flow until baseball and some of the other venues in Jordan Valley Park opened up,” said Mary Mannix-Decker, Springfield director of Finance. “We had structured the bonds that way and had been anticipating the first year or two were really not expected to be operating at capacity.”

The 350,000-square-foot parking garage, with a price tag of $12 million, has 977 spaces on six levels. It opened for business Sept. 19, 2003.

The debt service will be phased in gradually. “We knew that baseball, best case, wouldn’t be in until 2005. So we took all that into account when we structured our payments,” she said. “It was with all of those venues up and running that the parking deck was designed for. If we had just designed it for what we had at the time, which was the expo (center), it would have been much smaller.”

Revenue vs. expense

For the fiscal year that ended June 30, the car park generated $100,172, Mannix-Decker said. Revenue for the car park’s first full calendar year of operation, which ended Sept. 19, 2004, reached $109,000, according to Jason Haynes, engineer with Springfield Public Works/Traffic.

Fees for parking are on a tiered structure, from $1 to $3. During the first calendar year of operation, 29,944 parking tickets were sold, Haynes said.

The city’s first interest payment of $189,000 is due in May 2005. The first principal payment in November 2005 will be $130,000, Mannix-Decker said.

The city expects the car park to cover its operating expenses and debt service in 2006.

In the car park’s first fiscal year of operation, Mannix-Decker said that its expenses totaled $174,500.

Ampco System Parking, a Los Angeles-based company that operates more than 1,700 lots and garages in 30 states, was paid $140,000 to manage the car park. The garage has three full-time employees and also relies on up to seven part-time employees for larger events, according to Joey Velasco, local manager for Ampco System Parking.

Currently there is no parking authority within the city of Springfield.

“We’ve talked about that off and on just because now we’re getting into parking in a much bigger way than any of us had anticipated four or five years ago,” Mannix-Decker said.

The bill for utilities was approximately $25,500. The remaining $9,000, Mannix-Decker said, covered minor operating expenses.

A lot of lots

Springfield City Council Nov. 29 approved an agreement between the city and John Q. Hammons, allowing Hammons to lease and develop land on the north side of the 1000-1100 block of St. Louis Street for parking. The land will be leased for $1 a year for three years, with the right for Hammons to purchase the land Jan. 1, 2008, for $1,893,092 outright or spread over the remaining 22 years of the lease.

The agreement states that Hammons will not charge less for parking than the rates charged at Jordan Valley Car Park.

Haynes doubts that other lots in the area – the future parking decks for the Heer’s Tower, College Station and the lot Hammons will lease – will have a negative affect on Jordan Valley Car Park due to the distance between the lots and the car park.

“We feel that with 70 home dates (for the Springfield Cardinals), obviously there’s going to be a lot more business at Jordan Valley Car Park, but also at (the lot Hammons will lease) as well,” Haynes said.

City officials are considering acquiring more downtown parking lots.

“We did reserve some additional money – I don’t think anything is finalized or planned, but with the thought of if any parking decks became available, or if the city entered into any negotiations to acquire parking decks, that we would have some funding to do that with,” Mannix-Decker said. “We’re not in negotiations with anyone on any specific lots.”

Activity

The events that have generated the most parking revenue, Velasco said, were all held at the Springfield Expo Center – the home show, the flower and garden show and the Sertoma Chili Cook-off. Each event, he said, averaged about 2,000 parking tickets sold.

Haynes said that during an average business day, there isn’t much traffic through the car park. “There may be two or three (tickets sold) a couple of times a week and there may be none on other days,” he said. “Hammons donated some land towards the construction of the garage in lieu of some additional parking in the garage. There’s 160 tower employees that have daytime passes into the Car Park. On a given day, if you drive by you’ll see roughly 120 cars in there during the daytime, and that’s usually the Hammons Tower employees that park in there and then walk to the tower.”