Get ready to pay more to park for Atlanta Falcons games next season if you use Georgia Dome lots.
The Georgia World Congress Center Authority agreed Tuesday to hike parking fees from $10 to $15 at Dome lots as it tries to boost revenue. The GWCCA oversees Dome operations and runs eight lots with 5,200 spaces.
The increase is part of the GWCCA’s fiscal 2011 budget for the Dome, Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia World Congress Center, the nation’s fourth largest convention facility. The budget projects another operating loss, though smaller than the current fiscal year’s.
GWCC spokesman Mark Geiger said the parking increase is competitive with nearby non-GWCC operated lots.
“This $15 rate includes the recently purchased lot (Brown Lot) on Mangum Street that holds approximately 300 cars,” Geiger said. “In previous years fans were charged $40 to park in this area. This increase to $15 is still much lower than most local and national parking lots charge during major sporting events.”
Officials made the move as the GWCC seeks to improve the revenue stream, which has taken a hit in the last few years because of attendance woes at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Officials projected Tuesday that the convention center will lose $1.5 million in fiscal 2011, which begins July 1. That is an improvement over an expected loss of $3.2 million in the current year ending next month. The 2010 loss was earlier projected at $5.7 million.
“If you consider where we started the year, with a projected operating loss of $5.7 million . . . it’s a significant change for the Congress Center,” Frank Poe, the new executive director of the GWCC, said in presiding over his first budget.
The financial picture improved as convention business ticked up late in the year and as the GWCC tightened operating costs, including cutting positions.
The outlook for 2011 has been buoyed by an increase in hotel occupancy, which the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Center said is up about 8 percent as of the end of April. The authority gets a slice of revenue from the hotel-motel tax.
The GWCC taps into reserves to cover operating losses, and it currently has about $5.7 million on hand, Poe said.
