We're gonna start a DPW committee meeting in regards to Laz parking.

Glad to be joined by Council Hogan, Council Navi, Council John Browser, President Hudson, Councillor Caldwell, and Council Manto, along with our Chief Operations Officer, Connor Modun, and members from CNS and Laz.

Take us away.

Great.

Thank you so much, Counselor.

Um so this is um in response to our uh proposal to enter into contract with Laz parking, uh for the operator of our municipal parking garages.

Um that would include Harrison, nope excuse me, not Harrison, I apologize, Washington Street Garage, Bayette Street Garage, Madison Irving, and Center Armory.

So four of our municipal own garages there.

Uh there was a competitive process.

There is an RFP.

Uh members of the Common Council were on that RFP committee.

Uh and uh it was a unanimous uh vote to go with Laz.

Laz has been our operator for uh a number of years.

How long have you been working together?

Seven, eight years, something like that.

Since two thousand and nine, fantastic.

Uh and you know, we've been very thrilled with with their performance and the the operation of our our garages.

Uh and we're looking to extend uh or enter into a new contract.

Um the contract is very similar to the prior contract that we had just uh finished up with LAS, so the similar to the last contract, the base charm would be a a three-year term, and then with two two-year options to renew, and both of those options would require the approval of the common council.

Ums was also the lowest bidder on all of the cost categories, uh, including security staffing, operating staffing, operating expenses, management fees, and equipment.

Um, and Laz is proposing as part of this contract to invest a hundred thousand dollars of their own funding into entry floor beautification and landscape for the garage portfolio, um, and to bear the costs and project management of installing EV chargers at the Fayette garage, Madison Irving Garage, and Washington Street Garage.

That's estimated a value of about 25,000.

Um so that's a good overview of of where we are, uh and happy to answer any questions about our parking garages.

How many EV stations?

So we would want to be mindful that the number of EV stations is not over a limit that would require additional costly investment into the underlying electrical infrastructure at those facilities.

So I think we're looking at it's approximately eight at each of the garages, Pat.

Is that sound right?

Or you can please correct me.

Eight at Washington, four at Fayette for at Madison.

Thank you.

And so none at Armory.

Not at this time.

Is that because Armory doesn't have the infrastructure to do it or we don't have the space?

What's the reason for none in Armory?

Pat, can you talk in the next one?

It's primarily a space issue.

And uh we recently put a lot of money into the armory garage, as you're most of you are aware.

Um there's a possibility that that could change hands, and that gets into a uh an issue with uh national grid and our tax situations and stuff where we'd have to give back money.

So rather than do that now, we thought we'd like to move forward with the other garages, and not to say we wouldn't do it in Armory in another year or two once we get you know on more secure footing.

So question is really not about the garage, it's just more about staffing.

Um, how many employees do you guys have at LAS?

And is there a lot of local um Syracuse people working?

Can you Okay, thank you?

Oh my notes.

And you just introduce yourself to you.

Hi, my name is Candy B.

Yes, I'm the area manager for LAS parking.

I've been with Laz for four years, but I've been in the parking industry since 1998.

For our portfolio, he and Syracuse, the city mainly the Syracuse um city garages because we have other um garages, we have a very big diversity.

Um we go from Hispanic like me.

Um we have from Jamaica, we have an employee, and then we have um African American, and um we have an Italian.

Um we have um our bookkeeper, um Steve Sanka.

So we have a very big diversity.

But what's your local hire?

I'm sorry?

What's your local local hiring?

What looks like?

I couldn't hear that.

What does your local hiring look like?

Oh, I'm gonna say 90% of our employees are are um city of Syracuse um residents.

Yeah.

I think only two employees we've always Syracuse.

I mean, my name's Justin Melhado, I'm the director of business development uh for Laz.

Um so I believe you asked how many employees we have total.

So we're a national organization, we have over 20,000 across the country.

In New York and New Jersey, we have just about 1,200 employees total.

How many in Syracuse?

Kendi, can you total employee for Syracuse, including city and known city?

We have a total of 20 employees.

Females and you say um city and I'm apologizing.

And like we have we have a county, we have a lap for the county, we have another garage for the we manage the equitable towers garage.

So the whole portfolio is 20 employees.

Um of our employees are cross-trained, and someone that works at Center Armory can work at Madison Irving, Madison Irving.

So, yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Um can we talk about uh the RFP?

Um, the things that have been promised, and just some clarification on the great services that Laz is providing to the city.

Um we're gonna talk about uh landscaping.

We want to provide seasonal landscaping, what does it look like?

Um we can also talk about uh the CCTV program and all that stuff and how we want to move forward with that as well.

Yeah, so uh over the several years we've made a number of investments in our garage portfolio for you know CC uh TV uh televisions for security purposes, uh for payment capture uh devices, uh in the way that you can pay with your credit card uh at all of our garages now.

Umscaping uh is up to uh the city on how we'd like to invest those those resources.

Um and then we can also uh work with LAS on the right way for uh to target some of those beautification dollars as well.

You know, we know that uh you know we have we have some aging garages that probably need uh a little bit of a facelift and maybe some other uh more robust uh infrastructure investments.

We're working with our engineering department and uh engineering contractors, CNS engineers uh to determine you know the right way to responsibly spend public dollars to maintain those facilities.

And as we look forward and move forward um into the future of parking, uh 81 coming down and trying to push people uh long-term state to use our parking garages.

How do we look to push that and move that forward to residents?

That's a really good question, Counselor.

I know that we had a bit of a brief discussion about this in the past uh study session.

Um, but you know, we know that there are a handful of things that are happening throughout the city.

All right.

I-81, uh the viaduct is coming down.

Uh there are over a thousand surface lots or surface spaces underneath those, the the highway infrastructure, right?

Uh New York State Department of Transportation is responsible for relocating a number of those lots, and and you know, we'll be a stakeholder in some of their decision making.

Um, but that also with uh the changes of where you know people want to be as close to their place of work as possible.

We all we all do.

Um, and you know, in a growing city, there's a limited number of places of where we can fit all those parking spots, right?

So parking infrastructure is really important into directing uh both full-time employees, people who are coming downtown for you know, bars and restaurants and uh theater and all those good things.

Uh we want to have as clear of a vision as possible as to how uh the growth of the region and the changing infrastructure will impact the supply and demand and revenue potential for each of our garages, right?

We want to make sure that you know each of our garages operates in a slightly different market and has slightly different range of what uh you know appropriate rates are.

Um we're talking internally with Laz and and with others on our finance team on a parallel uh proposal to the council on increasing our garage rates because our rates haven't adjusted since 2017.

What is the rate right now?

Right now, what are our regular monthly rates?

About 120.

They've they're a little bit maybe 120, 125, it's a bet depending on on each garage.

90 to 120.

Thank you, Pat.

Um, and so you know, we want to make sure that we have all of the information needed to say, you know, we have we have aging infrastructure, and we want to um invest in this aging infrastructure to have it uh operate as you know as long as we can as safely as we can.

Uh and you know, down the road in the long term, uh, whether that's 10, 20 years from now, we're gonna need to make some hard decisions on redeveloping some of these sites because the the infrastructure doesn't last forever.

And so we're looking to bring in a count a uh consultant to help us understand the transportation and mobility, the the economics, the real estate potential, all of those things.

So is the 90 to 120 a month?

Is that an average of both people that park there, just who live there, and then also like people that because there's garages that have leases with like the Madison Irving has a medical building that at least is that the average of all of that?

Yes.

Well, each garage, depending on the area, is half a different um rate.

Madison Irvin, the rates are structured, um 70 for the medical building employees, um, 80 for the public, and we have reserve for 90 dollars.

Then we move to Fayette is 90 for regular parkers and 100 for reserve.

Um, same for the Washington Street Garage, 90 and 125 for reserve, and center armory is a flat hundred dollar fee for resident and non-residents.

Right.

And all of those um have been set since 2017.

So we're we're fairly below the market that we that we should be at.

And uh one of the benefits of having a national partner like Laz is that they have the ability to look across communities of similar to our size to say, you know, where where really should those rates be?

And so they've you know, as part of our conversations have proposed some numbers.

Uh, we're looking to share uh some of that very soon with you all of what what we think would be a good rate for that.

So for LAS, for you, uh how far below the how far below are we if you look at a city of this size across the country?

So we operate we we operate the parking for several cities in in this general in the upstate New York market, city of my El Myrock, excuse me, City of Binghamton.

Um the city of Rochester, we operate in Kendi can speak to the difference in rate, but what we had proposed previously was about a ten to twenty dollar per rate increase, which is roughly about how far behind the city's rates are compared to other municipal municipalities uh in upstate New York.

And then something that we'd be open to discussion with the council on is maybe uh setting um an automatic increase at you know in the the long term, just so that we don't get to a point where we're we're eight years behind the last increase and we're we're losing revenue from from that.

Maybe it'd be a every two years a five dollar bump or or something in that neighborhood of a very reasonable, but make sure that we continue to maintain with the market.

Maybe Corey to keep a question.

I know I've been here long enough that we had talked in depth about getting rid of parking garages.

So where are we?

We're still talking about that or we're sure.

So the study that I was just referencing to Councilor Gather's questions would would be an important, all those important information to say how much longer can we continue to operate in some of these garages?

What what are the appropriate rates?

And where is that really the end of that useful life?

That we say, you know, uh one of our garages, or you know, whichever garage uh, for example, 40 years old, even in uh uh good expectations, uh concrete structure in the northeast uh of that age and use that really has a maximum useful life of of 50 years.

So we're starting to reach that upper limit of what we uh need to be doing, and make we need to make some hard decisions probably in the next couple of years of the of getting rid of some of those garages, whether or not we uh sell them to then operate as a garage or whether or not we demolish them and build something on top of that is part of the information we'd like this study to help inform.

Okay, so we're still having those conversations.

Correct.

Um Chief Administrative Officer Corey Dunham.

Yes, I will note though, you know, obviously with the council support, which was huge, you know, we did offload the AXA garage, um, which I know at least for me and a couple of us was a priority because you know, we were just um the repairs that it needed, you know, we were never going to see a return on, you know, it was going to take us too long.

These subterranean garages and cold climate, uh, it's really difficult to maintain.

So I think we have made some progress.

I mean, AXA was huge and obviously couldn't have done it without the council support.

But to Connor's point, you know, we we it's difficult to know exactly um what the impact will be if we offload some of these garages entirely.

And and I know that there are mixed feelings in the administration on the council of, you know, should we hang on to these um at least you know one or two to try and help control the market a bit, or should we just acknowledge that garages are expensive to maintain and try and offload the assets that we have?

Additionally, I mean there's an impact to the neighborhoods where the garages are.

Like, is there enough parking?

If you look at Madison Irving, if without that garage, where are all those cars going in that neighborhood too?

And you know, correct.

My last question is I know we're talking about parking garages, but doesn't LAS also oversee some of our parking lots?

They they don't oversee our parking lots, no.

Um we uh those are either metered or we um you know there are a few lots down on Pearl Street that we rent from New York State that that our um finance office uh controls the permits issued for those.

Thank you.

I have a question safety.

Um I don't know if this we'll figure it out.

Okay.

So Laz is the one that's overseeing.

Now we have some calls about the safety issues in the garage.

Do we have we have cameras up to date things going on?

How do they who actually does the like the securing of the garage fires um safety who walks the garage?

Is that Laz staff?

Okay.

So we have um security security tax.

It's our security um contractor that watches the cameras, they walk the garages.

We also have a team that drives the garages and make sure that everything is um is good.

When we do garage walk, we don't only look for people bound the license.

We also look for safety issues.

Whenever that's a safety issue, we let Pat know.

Um there's other things that we maintain as a team, cleaniness, um inventory and stuff like that.

But you guys have a like a red box or something if somebody needed help that they could hit it in.

So we have the duress system.

If somebody needs help, they press the button and um and we get the call.

Okay, so in case of an emergency, yes.

I can get some help.

I should have introduced myself earlier.

I'm pet moaning.

Um we have a duress system in all of our garages.

It's a code requirement by the city and the state now, but it's the panic system, you know, and immediately when you hit that button, a call should go out to a c uh to a call center, they notify the police and the garages themselves if need be.

Uh it's kind of a redundant system for us as well.

Because all of our cameras are or all of our garages with the exception of Center Armory are totally camera.

So we have a uh we use the Washington Garage, which is where Kendi is really based out of uh to and I invite you to go over there and take a look at it.

But it's a series of monitors in there, and they're monitored um by uh eyes on 24-7.

So it doesn't matter, you know, at any time if anything happens, we should get an alert from the uh security um that's you know, the police would get a call.

Okay.

Uh to the question about uh the future.

Yeah.

Um what what are the steps that you think it needs to happen for us to see where we need to go with our parking garages?

So uh last week I shared a scope of work with uh the the council about the types of information that we're looking to receive and to understand through this study.

Um if you know if that looks good, we can put that out to an RFP to understand or an RFQ potentially, depending on how we'd like to proceed, um, what sort of the cost range might be.

Um there's a potential that we may have some existing partnerships with sort of third-party technical assistance providers, people who um already have some knowledge in parking garage uh operations and certainly Laz is our our partner in in many of those things as well.

Um, but we may be able to find uh someone who can do it for a much more competitive uh price based on already existing relationships with the city.

I I think Gro Grow America uh was the name of the the company.

So you know, we're gonna have some early conversations about if they're uh the appropriate person to do so.

Um and if not, then we would want to uh put this study out to to bid.

Um it would take probably six to nine months or so to do all of the sort of data collection, financial analysis, planning analysis there.

Um, but then we'd be able to next year sort of have a much more informed uh set of of perspectives on the long-term strategy for our parking operations.

And as far as our famous shuttle going, how is that going?

Shuttle shuttle is uh I know certainly there's lots of questions and and attention around the shuttle.

Um we we put the shuttle into place a few years ago at the specific request from members of the CSEA about um the understandable distance between the Washington Street Garage and and City Hall and uh at the time City Hall Commons and now one park place.

Um average, uh the shuttle gets around 30 or so users in the morning and in the afternoon.

That number increases if inclement weather, you know, for uh winter, winter cold, things like that.

Um it is something that we're really proud to have been able to provide to our employee base.

You know, we we receive very positive comments from the individuals who use the shuttle very frequently, um, you know, close relationships between uh the shuttle drivers and and the city employees, um, and they certainly see it as a really important amenity to to being an employee at the city of Syracuse.

We own it, right?

We own the shuttle, that's correct.

Um are we looking to expand this as well from the great growth that people have been seeing as I think the county is also interested in trying to use our shuttle as well.

Oh, the county is?

Yes.

Oh, open to the conversation.

Yeah, I mean, we we when we launched the shuttle, um, I think Kendi was involved.

We were trying to see if there were, you know, um some of the apartment buildings that are nearby, like the 9X building, to say, hey, we could maybe get an agreement if your tenants wanted to park in the Washington Street garage, we could come to some agreement perhaps about the shuttle.

Um they weren't interested at that time, but we remain open to any partnerships to make the best use of the shuttle.

So happy to have a conversation with the county.

I'll mention it to them during our our next check-in.

And does it get used any other time?

Like, do they use that or like during SU games to try to do that?

Not yet, Counselor, but I think it's a it's um something that we should explore.

And I know that Councilor Monta one time we were talking about maybe making that an amenity that would be available during our festivals.

Um that you know, not everybody needs to park immediately around Clinton Square.

If you wanted to park in the Washington Street Garage, you can park there.

We'll we'll get a shuttle that takes you to and from Clinton Square or you know, whatever the or maybe to in front of City Hall for Italian Fest or to the Inner Harbor, you know.

Uh I think that's I think there's still a lot of potential with the shuttle to explore.

I might have missed it, but how many people actually use the shuttle at this point?

So I think Connor mentioned about 30, 30 uh on average a day.

Obviously, when it's raining out, there's gonna be a little bit more during the winter time.

I think it's it's more, but um again, just to echo Connor.

I think the feedback that we've gotten, it's uh positive feedback from employees, and again, the relationship that's been built between the employees and the drivers is um is nice to see.

With those traffic enforcement cameras, I was wondering if they could swing up to Bryant Avenue and pick me up.

Happy to know, you know.

Well, drop you off wherever you'd like.

That's good.

Um the EV charge in stations.

Um that be particularly just for individuals who have contracts with um like a regular person, I can just come and use the charger station, but I'm gonna be also having to pay for the parking time as well.

Um how do you think that's gonna do you think that people will do that?

So I I know that our planning department, um, they had initially looked at some of this as well through some some similar programs through the state and and private sector uh investment.

Um they're also exploring on street EV parking stations, right?

And so that wouldn't require somebody to then have to pay for the parking garage in order to access that EV charging infrastructure.

And so that's something that communities across the country are are just really beginning to start to implement the model.

And just uh um kind of uh put a little plug to each other for people who might possibly be using the um EV station, if they're not using it overnight, they might be using it during the day.

And have do we have any um contracts with some of the like share ride companies that people just park their car and they like rent it online and they go pick it up?

Do any of those people like store their vehicles in the garages at all?

I don't believe that we would we don't have a direct contract with any third-party company that provides that type of service.

If any individual wants to use their own vehicle and then rent out their own vehicle, I'm aware of those sorts of things existing, and they choose to park it in the the Washington Street garage or any of the our garages, um that would be a decision of the individual.

We wouldn't have the that information.

Connor, what additional expenses besides?

I mean, obviously, I don't know if we ban for all our garages as far as repairs go.

Do we mostly ban?

Correct.

So it's just the cost of the binding plus paying for uh LAS.

Yeah, so operating dollars pay for the the LAS, you know, daily operations, monthly operations.

I mean, there are three million for three years, and but it looks like we garners we over that three year period, we'll garner six million in revenue.

I mean that's that information in front of me.

Well, that's just you know, New York looked it up in the budget.

So I'm I'm thinking that we nibble around the edges here.

I have no problems with it as far as their management of the garages, but you know, we have those four garages, and I know President Hudson and I have been through this before uh before, but the garages are an integral part of obviously the city as far as the revenues go, people would need to you know get to work and they need a place to park.

Yep.

I think down the road, I think we gotta consider, and I maybe on late this last three or four months of the administration, consider a template maybe a part of a parking authority we've been talking about before.

You know, at least with that we could ban off the city line off the city line and the authority could ban.

And then look for all sorts of opportunities.

I see the commissioner of assessment in the back here, and I know he's a big proposal as far as running those parking meters up East Fayette Street, but I mean down the road we we put the parking meters under a under the umbrella of maybe a parking authority and have the parking authority run the run the run the garages.

We're gonna need another garage in the inner harbor.

Oh I'll say that for sure.

Definitely we're gonna need another garage.

So whether that's a city-county thing or whatever, but I would like to see something put together the last couple months of administration.

I think we we are open to any and all suggestions on the proper way to to uh manage and govern both our on-street parking and our garage parking.

Then they have to really work together because the the way that really um forward-thinking parking entities operate is has you know variable rates around time of day, around special events, things like that.

There certainly are a lot of opportunities that exist out there.

But I would encourage you to include the council in this.

I mean, I'm not a big fan of surface parking lots as far as the city counselor goes, because surfing surface parking lots don't produce revenue like buildings do.

Correct.

You know, so down the road, we're gonna have to have garages.

I was in Detroit a couple weekends ago, and right outside uh the new Count America Stadium and the football field and everything else is a giant garage.

You know, they don't use they don't take up a lot of space compared to surface parking lots.

So that's what I have to say.

Absolutely.

No, I I appreciate all the suggestions.

Um, you know, I think we do we do have some people who are you know beginning to think about the expansion of the geography of surface lots, um thinking about increasing our rates for our structured parking, um, thinking about the overall supply and demand of parking across the city and where where are there opportunities to invest, where there are opportunities to maintain.

We don't want to price yourself out of the market.

We still got to control it.

That's why I think as a parking authority, you know.

So for all the things that have been promised with Les, and they've been doing a great job for what we have connection that we've been having relationship rather.

Umsuring that everything that was proposed and everything that's going on the contract is gonna be met just to show us the progress.

Could we try to get more like monthly reportings or something like that?

Just to you know, show us the numbers and shows where we're going up and where we're going down.

Yeah, we should show where the report is.

Yeah, we should show where the finance department does receive monthly financial reports.

Um, and and we're um in the practice of uh re rebeginning uh a monthly sort of management check-in meeting to make sure that any issues for uh things like hey, there's a there's a light over here, there's a a button on an elevator that needs a you know maintenance, things like that, making sure that we're on top of all of that.

Um but yeah, we can we can share that information with the council.

As part of that meeting, our team, Candy Cress, they they put together a full presentation that outlines the previous month's financial performance to budget, day-to-day operations of the garage.

You know, we share that presentation with Connor and his team.

Happy to share that with the council.

Yes, for hard and this thing, we got property on Solar Street.

You want to build a garage?

There's property on Soldier Street.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Now the Inner Harbor is certainly an area focused citywide that is uh you know, over the coming years as you know plans form and and come to fruition for the increased development in that area.

We absolutely will need a significant number of parking spaces in in the inner harbor.

Any other questions, comments?

Speak now, hold your peace.

I'm gonna hold my peace.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for Helen Hudson Garage.

Don't be cute.