$200 price tag for garage parking to go before board

Trustees will consider today the approval of a $200 garage-only parking permit for reserved or guaranteed parking in designated garages at district colleges.

The proposal was approved unanimously July 17 by the Audit, Budget and Finance Committee and forwarded to the full board for consideration at its regular July meeting at 5:30 p.m. todayin Room 101 of Killen Center, 201 W. Sheridan.

If approved, the garage-only permits would be sold beginning Jan. 1.

The new type of parking permit was proposed to help fund the $15 million parking garage as part of a public/private partnership between this college and the Tobin Hill Neighborhood Association, John Strybos, associate vice chancellor of facilities operation and construction management, told the committee.

According to the minute order, the increase in parking permits would provide revenue of $320,625 annually.

The parking garage would have 961 parking spaces, of which 369 spaces would be available for students during the day and commercial use at night. The other 592 would be reserved for residents and commercial use.

By August 2013, a total of 2,750 garage parking spaces will be available throughout the district’s three garages -- one at Northwest Vista and two at this college.

District 1 trustee Joe Alderete asked how a spot would be guaranteed for a student or employee.

Diane Snyder, vice chancellor for finance and administration, said parking spaces would not be assigned spots, but the district would sell only enough permits that would guarantee a spot.

Permits to park in parking lots will remain at $50.

In a phone interview today, Tim Rockey, dean of continuing education, who oversees parking at this college, said there are about 900 parking spaces at this college’s current garage and about 30 are reserved for administrators and directors.

Strybos said today administrators and directors who have reserved spots in the garage will have to pay for the $200 permit.

Rockey said although he was not part of the discussion for developing the garage parking permit, he believes there will have to be controls set up in the garage to scan parking permits to allow entry into the garage.

“I’m sure there are going to be some students that say, ‘Hey just knowing that I’ve got a place to park, I’ll pay the money,’” he said.

In addition, the committee unanimously approved a conversion of the quasi-endowment account of about $11 million into a capital project account to internally finance approved capital projects, such as future construction needs.

Student scholarships previously funded through the quasi-endowment will be funded from excess parking permit revenues to create a stable source of institutionally funded scholarships.

According to the minute order, because of the loss in market value of the quasi-endowment account between Aug 31, 2008, and March 31, 2009, student scholarships could not be funded.

District 2 trustee Denver McClendon said he was concerned on how funds will be paid back into the account because the district is “borrowing” from itself.

Snyder said excess parking permit fee revenues will be put into the account.

She said if the district does not receive revenues from the parking permits, modifications to the parking permit rates can be done.

“This is indoor parking — mostly, and a guaranteed spot, and we think that’s very marketable. So that $200 permit will be readily achieved even from employees, much less students,” she said.

District 9 trustee James Rindfuss said when the parking permit is raised, the board must declare that all revenue generated from the parking permits will be used for scholarships and will not go into the general operating budget.

“Once that parking garage is paid off, then 100 percent of all those revenues should go toward scholarships,” he said.

Snyder said 100 percent of revenues would not go toward funding scholarships because an initial idea was that revenues would also fund future construction needs.

“As written right now we were trying to get both,” she said. “We actually wrote this as a win-win to give you both, but allow us to constrain it so that in the repayment we do feed the scholarship at a set rate that you could determine and then the rest would only go back to this revolving fund.”

In related business, the Buildings, Grounds and Sites Selections Committee unanimously approved to recommend the transactions for the $30 million price tag on apartments as part of the public/private partnership development between this college and the Tobin Hill Neighborhood Association.

Tobin Hill Lofts will be a four-story, 225-unit, 552-bed, residential development at North Main Avenue and East Laurel Street.

At the June 12 committee meeting, Jim Plummer, a partner in Fulbright and Jaworski LLP, said groundbreaking for the Tobin Hill Lofts has to be before Aug. 31 because the mezzanine financing for apartments, $6.7 million from Virtus Real Estate Capital, has to be spent starting in August.

In addition, Broadway Bank is lending $20.5 million for construction.

Plummer said Tuesday that although the apartments are available to any university or college students, faculty or staff, residents will be required to buy a parking permit from the district to park in the garage.