O’Hare $8 car rental fee may rise to help fund more parking

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Rahm Emanuel | Sun-Times file photo

Updated: November 10, 2011 3:47PM

It looks like the $8 fee slapped last year on the cost of renting a car at O’Hare Airport may be headed even higher.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has hired a consultant to design a new economy parking structure on Parking Lot F at the southeast corner of Mannheim and Zemke Roads. The five-level garage would be shared by rental cars and public parking.

The $7.1 million contract calls for Transystems Corp. to draft detailed plans and “probable construction costs” for a parking structure with convenient access to an existing Metra station and “a new station for an extended” airport people mover system.

“While the extension and station relocation is not part of the project, the interface between this system and the proposed facility with the proposed station is a key element of the project to be completed in stages,” according to the contract, awarded earlier this month.

Last year, the City Council approved then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s plan to add $8 to the cost of renting a car at O’Hare to bankroll a $393 million facility that will consolidate airport rental car companies into a central location to make way for new runways.

At the time, officials described the $8 “customer facility charge” as a starting point and said the fee would go higher if the people mover system was extended to the new rental car campus instead of simply consolidating the companies’ shuttle bus operations.

Now, it appears that decision has been made. That paves the way for an even higher fee that could someday mirror the $18 per transaction imposed on rental car customers in Los Angeles.

The $137.8 million people mover system opened in 1993 to ease roadway congestion at O’Hare with a capacity of 2,400 passengers an hour. The system currently includes five stations and 2.7 miles of double guideway connecting three domestic terminals, an internal terminal and remote parking facilities.

Also on Wednesday, the Emanuel administration issued a request for proposals (RFP) for more than 17,000 square feet of food and beverage concessions at Midway Airport.

The competition includes a new, 5,846-square-foot food court in Concourse A, complete with a 1,500-square-foot “wine bar”, and 11 expiring leases of additional space in the existing Midway Concessions Triangle.

Together, the space put out to bid is expected to generate $25 million in annual sales and $3 million in revenues.

The remaining 17,000 square feet of concession space is run by Midway Airport Concessionaires, co-owned by millionaire brothers Timothy and Everett Rand. Their contract expires in 2014.

The Rand brothers have controlled Midway concessions since 1989, but ran into trouble — first by overbidding and piling up a hefty debt to the city, then by getting a 10-year contract under the pretense that the company was a disadvantaged business.

Disadvantaged businesses are defined as owned by people whose personal wealth is less than $750,000, excluding their homes. In 2005, Timothy Rand’s personal worth was $20 million, state records showed.