VERO BEACH — Parking at the Vero Beach Regional Airport has become a growing concern for residents as the airport expands service with American Airlines and JetBlue, bringing increased passenger traffic to the area.
Airport officials had initially considered managing parking operations themselves, but on March 10 asked the city to instead pursue a private partnership to handle the project.
Brandon Dambeck, the airport’s operations manager, told city officials that shifting to a private operator would make the project more appealing to potential investors.
“It creates a more marketable opportunity for that private investor to come in by allowing the operator to fully realize any revenue potential from the parking operation without any competition from the airport for some of the prime spaces,” Dambeck said.
Dambeck said keeping the airport directly involved in parking operations could discourage private investment and create operational challenges for the facility.
“The airport would be in direct competition at that point with a private operator and would retain the most desirable parking areas that would be there. So the structure would also be pretty much a deal breaker for anybody that would want to come in because they're not going to get the majority of the parking going to them. They would get the majority of the parking going to us,” he said.
He added that operating the parking facilities internally could also require additional staffing and limit the airport’s ability to build other supporting lots.
“We would have to be in the position of needing to potentially hire additional staff for management of and daily management and maintenance of that facility. And then the airport would also maintain the employee parking and lot A, because we would no longer be able to afford to create the additional employee parking lot and the cell phone lot,” Dambeck said.
Financial projections presented to the city suggested that leasing the entire parking parcel to a private company would slightly increase annual revenue while shifting operational costs away from the airport.
“Leasing the entire parcel would generate approximately $422,000 of revenue a year, whereas in option one we would only get $417,000. And option two would create no direct expenses for the airport. It takes all that liability off of us and it goes on to the private entity,” he said.
The private partnership could also allow for more parking spaces overall. A recent study of the airport’s activity estimated the need for roughly 550 parking spaces based on current demand.
Dambeck said the private model would expand capacity a bit beyond that number.
“Under option one, we are looking at total parking spaces of 500 spaces, approximately 458 paid parking spaces, and the employee parking for lot A would be approximately 42,” he said. “Under option two, we would have approximately 630 total parking spaces that we'd be able to create. There would be 500 paid parking spaces, minimum, 100 employee parking spaces, and then approximately 30 spaces in the cell phone waiting lot.”
Under the proposal, the private partner, Envision Parking, would invest about $5 million to develop the parking facilities.
“That $5 million estimate would be for demolition of the current parking lots and the construction of just one major parking lot. That's where we get the $5 million for that private investment for them coming in and doing that,” Dambeck said.
For the first decade of operation, revenue generated by the parking system would be used to repay that investment.
Steve Kovaleski, co-owner of Envision, said payments would be handled through SafeParc’s license plate scanning system, which uses DMV records to identify vehicles and issue bills if needed.
“You can come in and you can scan a barcode. For people who are tech savvy, they can scan the barcode, go to the app, make the payment,” Kovaleski said. “You can call a number and a clerk will take your payment. If you do nothing, you'll receive a bill in the mail just like you would for E-Pass.”
Kovaleski said unpaid parking fees could ultimately lead to action against a driver’s license.
City council members voted to approve the private partnership for airport parking, with Councilman John Carroll casting the lone dissenting vote.
City staff have proposed starting with a 15-year contract with Envision, though the final terms of the lease could change as negotiations continue.