Council to approve parking deal with Rockwell Collins

The City Council is slated Tuesday evening to approve a downtown economic-development agreement with Rockwell Collins that will cover $150,000 of the annual downtown parking cost for the 400 Rockwell Collins employees who will move into the Town Centre building in the first part of 2011.

The city's economic-development agreement with the company also will provide free city bus service for Rockwell employees between the company's downtown office and the company's northeast Cedar Rapids campus. At the same time, the city will spend at least $320,000 to improve lighting in parkades and security cameras in the city's skywalk system.

The agreement calls for the city to commit 400 parking spaces for Rockwell employees, with 60 spaces or as many as possible in the Third Avenue Parkade and the rest in the Fourth Avenue Parkade. New spaces that become available in the Third Avenue Parkade will go to Rockwell employees until the number reaches 200, according to the agreement.

The parking agreement goes into effect no later than April 1 and will extend through April 2014 with options to renew for up to six years.