Chicago filed a lawsuit seeking to modify the size of the $58 million award an independent arbitration panel ruled the city owes private operators of four downtown city and park district-owned parking garages.
The panel earlier this year ruled that Chicago must compensate the private operators for lost revenue and interest stemming from approval granted to a competing parking facility by former Mayor Richard Daley’s administration.
The private operators — Chicago Loop Parking LLC — filed a claim in 2011 seeking as much as $200 million from the city.
It argued that the city violated terms of its 99-year, $563 million lease struck in 2006 that prohibits the city from approving new public parking facilities within a designated zone around the garages. CLP filed a claim and the matter went to arbitration. Under terms of the lease, independent arbitration rulings are binding.
The city last week filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court that seeks to modify the panel’s award, arguing that an agreement with the building developers that puts a halt to public parking in the competing garage limits future damages built into the $58 million award, according to the city’s law department.
Chicago used $278 million from the deal to retire limited-tax bonds that financed construction of the Millennium Park garage. Another $120 million went into an escrow account with interest covering the $5 million in annual revenue the district will lose as a result of handing over control of the garages. Another $150 million is financing park improvements.
