Overview
- A five‑member City Council negotiating team announced this week a tentative agreement with New York‑based Stonepeak that would clear the way for a roughly $2.53 billion purchase of the city’s leased parking‑meter system.
- The deal calls for a $75 million transfer fee at closing plus a 5% share of net operating income going forward, a combination city officials say could produce roughly $376 million to $451 million for Chicago over the remaining life of the contract.
- Stonepeak agreed to sell its controversial affiliate Omni Air International, accept limits on sharing user data with immigration authorities, commit to local‑hire targets for meter workers, and explore designating whole non‑metered blocks for EV charging with shared revenues.
- Negotiators also changed closure and true‑up rules to reduce city costs by allowing seven temporary event closures per year and raising the hourly threshold for closure payments from six to ten hours, and the proposal now faces finance committee and full council votes before the Sept. 30 deadline.
- The package responds to the long‑running fallout from the 2008 75‑year lease that gave private operators large revenues while leaving the city with pension shortfalls, and if approved it could ease pension pressure and set new guardrails for future privatizations.