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Your first look at Dallas Love Field's new $208 million parking garage landing in late 2018
Robert Wilonsky
August 1, 2016

The new parking garage at Dallas Love Field will cost more than originally expected and open later than originally announced. But when the $208 million facility starts parking cars in October 2018, it will be "better than your average good-luck-finding-a-space garage," Dallas' director of aviation told the Dallas City Council this morning.

The new garage is currently under construction next to the main terminal and will hold some 5,000 cars on nine floors — two below ground, seven above — when it opens in the fall of 2018, said Mark Duebner, who oversees operations at Love. Each spot will be outfitted with a sensor, there will be ticket pay stations scattered throughout, and there will be license-plate readers, he said, "that can tell you where you parked if you forgot."

And, Duebner said, it wasn't just as simple as adding a new parking lot at Love, which is "wall-to-wall people" at peak since the Wright Amendment's restrictions were lifted in October 2014. Other modifications had to be made as well, including the addition of a $2.6 million "weather-protected vestibule to help with passenger circulation."

Originally officials guesstimated they'd see 7 million passengers a year by 2032. Now they believe they'll fly 8.2 million passengers annually come 2032 — at the very latest.

The new garage is also allowing — and, in some cases, forcing — the city's aviation department to fine-tune the redone Love. For instance, Duebner said, it will cost $600,000 just to move the Spirit of Flight sculpture as part of the garage build-out.

The Dallas Police Department will also get an expanded facility in the new garage, which will cost around $4.6 million, and Love is having to add what's essentially a service-animal restroom on the other side of security per federal regulations.

The project is being funded entirely by bonds issued by the aviation department. Those bonds are not taxpayers' responsibility but are repaid through revenue generated by the airport.

The city has also been talking about trying to put a hotel at Love.

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