Under the timeline contained in the "Request for Concessionaire Qualifications" released by the Pittsburgh Public Parking Authority earlier this year, prospective bidders interested in entering into a long-term lease for the publicly owned parking assets were to submit responses to the RFQ by March, due diligence on the applicants would be done through June, final proposals would be due in July, and a close of the deal would occur in November.
That timeline is predicated on the fact that the purpose of the lease is to turn an up front lump sum into a deposit for the anemic pension funds. Under existing state law, if the City can show a 50% minimum funded ratio (assets/liabilities) by the valuation taken in January 2011 then it is business as usual. If that 50% is not met, then the state is going to take over administration of the plans.
So one has to wonder what, if anything, the proposed action by City Council to spend $250k by amending the Capital Budget and Community Block Grant Budget to engage a consultant to study the lease idea does to that timeline and the plan. Presumably, Council is going to have to sign off on the lease idea in the end (notwithstanding any complicated financial arrangements, the Authority owns the assets up for lease consideration) and wants to have the best information available. But what happens if their analysis stretches past the established period of due diligence that is supposed to wrap up this month? What if it even goes into the dog days of July when the pool of bidders (11 parties as of March) is submitting final proposals?
