Hartford Parking Authority seeks to retain revenue to self-fund major garage repairs; council questions enforcement pause

Jill Turlo, CEO of the Hartford Parking Authority, told the Operations Management Budget and Government Accountability Committee that the authority proposed retaining greater operating revenue this year so it can self-fund phase 1 repairs to the Main and Trumbull (MAC) Garage and the library parking deck.

"The MAC Garage ... is about a $52,000,000 project if done in phases," said Kaye Almanai, HPA director of strategic growth and finance, summarizing an on-call engineering firm's condition report and the authority's estimate for phased repairs. The authority described rising emergency repair costs and said deferred maintenance has driven the need for phased capital work.

Why it matters: the MAC Garage is a major downtown parking asset (the HPA described it as a more-than-900-space garage). Significant capital needs at city parking structures can affect downtown access, event parking, city revenues and the general fund if repairs are advanced as a city capital project.

Turlo outlined the HPA's operations and community work: the HPA manages 13 assets (garages and…