The payment last month ended City Hall’s long and unsuccessful legal fight against claims from investors in the four privately operated garages under Millennium Park and Grant Park.
The dispute dates back six years. That’s when aides to former Mayor Richard M. Daley mistakenly approved a parking garage in the new Aqua building at 225 N. Columbus Dr.
Under the 2006 privatization deal, the Daley administration received $563 million to lease the parking garages for 99 years. As part of the deal, the city wasn’t supposed to allow any new competitors in a vast area surrounding the garages.
But less than three years after the Chicago City Council approved the deal, the Daley administration allowed the Aqua garage to open to the public just a block from the nearest of the privatized lots.
Arguing that that violated their deal, the operators of the garages filed a claim against the city, asking for at least $200 million.
The case went to an independent arbitrator, who ruled in 2013 that the city had breached the contract and should pay $57.8 million in compensation to the parking garage investors.