Staff recommends the City Council award a contract for upgrading the parking and revenue access control equipment for the Empire Garage in an amount not to exceed $150,000 to Flash Parking.

The current parking and revenue access control equipment in the Empire Garage has been experiencing a rise in equipment failure creating operational and financial concerns. Parking patrons have expressed frustration over the faulty equipment and have become reluctant to use the parking garage.  The inbound and outbound flow of traffic has been negatively affected due to the dysfunctional equipment.  The company that has been overseeing the maintenance and operations of the garage continue to encounter difficulties working with the parking equipment vendor.  Due to the dysfunctional equipment, the parking gate barriers were raised to allow traffic to flow in and out of the garage resulting in loss of revenue for the Parking Department.  The parking gate control equipment must be replaced as soon as possible.  The other three city parking garages received new gate control equipment in the early fall of 2020.  The Parking Division is requesting approval to install the same type of equipment in the Empire Garage.  All city parking garages would be operating on the same equipment allowing for more efficient operations and improved customer service.

Northern Hotel and Empire Garage Owners Association.

City Council may:

• Approve the recommendation to award Flash Parking the contract in an amount not to exceed $150,000; or,
• Not Approve the recommendation.  If the project is not awarded, the project will need to find another source of funding.