Parking Information for Toledo University | OH

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Please remember that parking permits are required at all times including nights and weekends, in between semesters, and academic breaks.
Please remember that parking permits are required at all times including nights and weekends, in between semesters, and academic breaks.

Month: March 2022

Parking Enforcement

Posted on by Charles Cangialosi

The role of parking enforcement is not to generate citation revenue for its own sake but to improve payment compliance 

The terms of the Concession Agreement include the parking rates and parking regulations set by the University.

The parking rates form the basis of the valuation of the Concession and the related bond financing and they, in turn, assume that the University will enjoy stable student enrollment (which drives total faculty, staff, student and visitor numbers) and that faculty, staff, students and visitors will comply with such parking rates and regulations.

The provision of parking is costly, in terms of building parking facilities, maintaining facilities over their useful life and in terms of operating the system so that everyone that needs to park can find a space when needed. These costs must be recovered somehow, even if parking is charged at below market rates (such as is the case at University of Toledo).

The Concession related bonds, used to redeploy the capital invested in building these assets and to fund their maintenance, are based on the assumption that users of the parking system will pay the prescribed rates.

In other words, the payment of Concession operating costs and debt service is based on stable permit revenues – not on uncertain and fluctuating citation revenue.

In fact the role of parking enforcement, whether for municipalities or universities (and the University of Toledo is truly the equivalent of a medium-sized city) is twofold –

  1. Firstly, to ensure payment compliance by users of the system, and
  2. Secondly to ensure that space availability is maximized to avoid capacity constraints that would otherwise occur as a result of abuse.

Ideally, everyone would pay the prescribed rate and remain in their parking space for their paid time and there would be zero citation revenue.

ParkUToledo uses a license plate recognition system for enforcement which automatically detects parking violations and takes photographic evidence of same. This is the same process that the University used prior to the Concession. ParkUToledo has an appeal process that requires it to review the photographic evidence in order to validate the citation – the outcome of any appeal is based on this evidence  – however this does not always placate the upset customer.

All Citations can be appealed, and the appeal review process is  not automated but are reviewed in person by a supervisor who examines the photographic and time stamp evidence and is required to apply the rules in a consistent way.

Good enforcement leads to higher compliance and fewer citations.

Introduction to the Parking Concession

Posted on by Charles Cangialosi

The University of Toledo monetized its parking assets through a long-term concession (the “Concession”) transaction, in order to:

  • Generate an upfront capital payment that can be used to help the University achieve its growth targets and advance its strategic priorities.
  • Improve the physical condition of the facilities that make up the Parking System.
  • Provide a better customer experience by outsourcing the operation to an experienced, professional third-party parking operator.
  • Improve the operation and management of the System using technology and parking industry best practices.
  • Focus on its core mission of educating its students.

The Concession transaction closed on October 7, 2021 and provided the University with an upfront payment of $52 million together with a further $10 million to be spent by the Concessionaire over the first three years of the Concession on upgrading the condition of the parking assets. Thereafter the Concessionaire is required to maintain the parking assets in good condition and to distribute to the University an anticipated further $140 million of surplus parking cash flows over the life of the Concession.

The University has effectively added $52 million to its Endowment Funds, transferred capital maintenance & life cycle costs for 35 years and outsourced operating risk, while retaining ownership and ownership rights (including the right to set rates and change policies) and a continuing revenue stream from surplus parking cash flows.

It is for the University to explain how the it intends to use those endowments funds, but it is easy to see why the University’s Board of Trustees voted this to be a transaction in the interests of the University, its faculty, staff and students.

The Concession Agreement is between the University of Toledo and ParkUToledo (the “Concessionaire”), a non-profit entity controlled by the Toledo Lucas County Port Authority. The Concession is managed by an Asset Manager (Diogenes) which in turn oversees the operation of the Parking System by an experienced parking Operator (SP+). Both the Asset Manager and the Operator have extensive experience in concession and parking operations management, and both have continued the employment of key university parking employees in order to ensure continuity of processes and institutional knowledge.

As a non-profit entity the Concessionaire operates the parking system for the ultimate benefit of the University and pays all surplus cash flow from the parking revenues, after operating expenses and debt service, to the University. Diogenes and SP+ are private companies, engaged by the Concessionaire to manage and operate the parking system for a fee and neither company participates in the parking revenues.

Despite the complexity of the documentation the Concession Agreement merely enshrines the University’s rights of ownership and the Concessionaire’s obligations to operate and maintain the parking system and to hand it back to the University at the end of its term in good condition. A copy of the Concession Agreement can be found here.