Water Street Parking Garage deal costs city millions [Video]

When Charlottesville entered a ground lease in 1991 to establish the Water Street Parking Garage downtown, it presumably thought it had made a good deal. But three decades later, that 99-year lease appears to be a shortsighted, multimillion-dollar blunder.

For years, in a complicated arrangement that effectively amounted to a public-private partnership, the city paid low prices to rent the land on which the garage sits. But in March, Charlottesville officials received distressing news: The friendly rent the city had long enjoyed would increase sixfold.

Between 2024 and 2091, the city estimated it would have to pay $273 million for a parking garage it does not own.

Alarmed by the legally binding contract’s new price tag, officials wanted a way out. So, landowner Mark Brown cut them a deal, letting them escape the lease in another 20 years instead of 67. But it comes at a steep price. Over the …