New Britain Parking System Due Diligence Assessment Prepared by: Chicago, Illinois September 8, 2016 New Britain, CT Parking System Due Diligence Assessment Page 1 of 28 1.0 Introduction The City of New Britain, CT (“City”) retained DESMAN to perform a financial and physical due diligence review of its parking assets and to develop realistic projections of the future financial performance of the parking system under three scenarios: 1) the City continues to operate and maintain the parking assets as they have historically; 2) the City continues to operate and maintain the parking assets, but automates revenue collection in the garages, and; 3) the City grants the right to operate and maintain the parking assets and collect all associated revenue to an outside entity in exchange for an upfront, lump-sum payment to the City. The purpose of this study is to assess the existing physical and financial state of the parking system (“Parking System” or “System”), including its place in the competitive market, to identify opportunities for revenue growth and cost savings assuming the operations are outsourced, and to develop long-term financial projections for the System under the three scenarios noted above. As part of this due diligence assessment, DESMAN performed a site visit to analyze all parking assets, evaluated the long-term structural needs of the City’s parking garages, performed parking occupancy surveys, reviewed financial and operating records, surveyed the market for competing parking, independently analyzed economic and demographic trends, and spoke to the City’s Department of Property Management which currently operates the Parking System. In its review and analysis, DESMAN has also drawn on its knowledge of similar parking systems nationwide. 2.0 DESMAN DESMAN is a national specialist in parking structure planning, design and restoration, offering a full range of services including financial analysis, transportation engineering, master planning, economic feasibility studies, site/size selection analysis, cost estimating, parking functional design, architectural design, structural engineering, revenue/access control system design, condition survey/due diligence studies, parking consulting, and restoration engineering. The firm has been in existence since 1973 and the staff of over one-hundred people, comprised mostly of transportation and parking planners, architects, and structural engineers, currently operates on a national basis out of nine principal offices. DESMAN has provided financial review and performance projection services related to the parking assets of hundreds of municipal and private clients across the country. DESMAN has also served in an advisory role on nearly every successful or proposed parking privatization transaction that has occurred in the United States over the past decade. 3.0 Parking System Description and Historical Performance This portion of the report presents an overview of the City of New Britain’s Parking System including the location and inventory of its existing assets, historical parking rate data, current utilization data, a review of the City’s existing revenue collection technology, and an analysis of the parking enforcement operation. 3.1 New Britain Parking System The Parking System consists of 3 structured parking facilities containing a total of 1,919 spaces open to the public, as well as 4 surface parking lots containing 98 spaces and 315 on-street metered spaces. The parking garages provide both daily and permit parking and are controlled using tickets and gates for New Britain, CT Parking System Due Diligence Assessment Page 2 of 28 daily parking and hangtags or electronic parking access cards for permit parkers; one of the garages also contains 28 metered parking spaces. The spaces in two of the surface parking lots are controlled using multi-space, pay-by-space kiosks, a third lot is controlled by single-space, mechanical parking meters for a portion of the spaces, while the remaining spaces are permit-only, and the other surface lot is a permit-only facility. The on-street spaces are controlled through a combination of single-space, electronic meters, single-space, mechanical meters and multi-space, pay-by-space kiosks. In addition to the physical parking assets, the System also includes the parking enforcement operation and the revenues and expenses associated with issuing citations for parking violations. Figure 1 illustrates the geographic location of the City’s parking assets. The City’s three parking garages are located at the corner of Columbus Boulevard and Washington Street (Badolato), Bank Street and Scalise Drive (Szczesny) and Pearl Street and Liberty Square (Blogoslawski). The on-street parking meters are distributed throughout downtown and as far south as Grand Street in front of the Hospital of Central Connecticut and as far north as Main Street north of CT-72. Table 1 provides a list of the City’s off-street parking assets including a letter identifying each facility (which corresponds to Figure 1), the address or cross streets of each facility, the name of each garage, and the number of spaces in each facility. The table also includes the total number of on-street metered parking spaces as of the date of this report. Table 1 – Inventory of On- and Off-Street Parking Assets ID Address or Intersection Facility Name Inventory A 35 Washington Street Badolato (Washington Street) Parking Garage¹ 170 B 35 Bank Street Szczesny (Bank Street) Parking Garage² 670 C 14 Franklin Square Blogoslawski (Liberty Square) Parking Garage³ 1,079 D 185 Main Street Surface Lot 29 E Main Street & Elm Street Surface Lot 21 F 35 Glen Street Surface Lot⁴ 24 G 85 Arch Street Surface Lot 24 Garages 1,919 Surface Lots 98 Total Off-Street 2,017 Total On-Street 315 Total Spaces 2,332 Source: City of New Britain; DESMAN 1) Of the 170 spaces open to the public in the Badolato Garage, 28 of the spaces are controlled using single-space parking meters; the remaining 142 are permit spaces. The top several levels of this garage (containing 330 spaces) are gated and used for City and Board of Education employees. 2) The top levels of the Szczesny Garage are gated and provide restricted access to the Police Department (approximately 200 spaces). 3) While there is an entrance to and exit from the Blogoslawski Garage on Pearl Street, this access point and the lower levels of the southern portion of the garage are restricted for use by employees of the Court. 4) Of the 24 spaces in this surface lot, 8 are controlled by single-space parking meters and 16 are dedicated to permit parking. Given the difficulty of presenting the information clearly in Table 1, it should be noted that, system- wide, there are a total of 401 spaces controlled by some kind of parking meter. New Britain, CT Parking System Due Diligence Assessment Page 3 of 28 Figure 1 – Locations of the City of New Britain’s Parking Assets N Garages Surface Lots On-Street Meters A B D E G C F Source: City of New Britain; DESMAN As shown in Table 1, off-street spaces (i.e. garages and surface lots) account for approximately 86% of the total spaces (2,017 of 2,332 total) owned/operated by the City, while on-street metered spaces New Britain, CT Parking System Due Diligence Assessment Page 4 of 28 account for about 14% of the total spaces. On the whole, metered spaces account for 17% of the total spaces (401 of 2,332 total). 3.1.1 Historical Parking Rates in New Britain Since the establishment of rates for on- and off-street parking in New Britain, the City has increased rates periodically in an attempt to keep pace with the every-increasing cost of operating the Parking System. The following is a brief summary of the historical parking meter rates, hourly and monthly parking rates in the garages and fine amounts for parking violations. 3.1.1.1 Parking Meter Rates From 2001 until late 2014, the rate charged for parking at most meters in the City of New Britain was $0.75 per hour. However, the parking meters installed in the Badolato Garage, as well as those on Pearl Street, Bosco Drive and Badolato Drive, charged a rate of $1.00 per hour. In late 2014, the rates charged for parking at all meters (both single-space and multi-space kiosks) were increased city-wide. The typical rate of $0.75 per hour was increased to $1.50 per hour, while the $1.00 per hour meters were increased to $2.00 per hour. While both of these rate changes represented an increase of 100% at the time, because it had been 13 years since the previous rates were established, this equated to average annual rate increase of slightly less than 6%. 3.1.1.2 Garage Hourly Rates While parking meters are used in the Badolato Garage to charge transient parkers, parkers at the Szczesny and Blogoslawski garages are issued a ticket upon entering the facilities and are charged at the exit, based on the amount of time they remained parked. Prior to 2009, the cost to park in the Szczesny Garage was $1.00 per hour, with a maximum charge of $8.00. At the Blogoslawski Garage, one hour of parking cost $2.00, while the maximum daily charge was $10.00. In 2009 and again in late 2014, the hourly parking rates in both garages were increased by $0.50. The current rates in the Szczesny and Blogoslawski garages are now $2.00 and $3.00 per hour, respectively, with maximum all day rates of $16.00 and $15.00. The $1.00 per hour increase in the hourly parking rates charged at the Szczesny and Blogoslawski garages since 2008 equate to average annual increases of almost 15% and 8.5%, respectively.