AirGarage Raises $23M Series B |
The Gateway is a 21-acre lifestyle complex in Salt Lake City, Utah, owned by Vestar and managed by Bryan Hill. The property includes six office towers, roughly 650,000 square feet of retail, dining, and entertainment space, two hotels, 450 housing units, and over 3,100 parking spaces across a north garage, south garage, and surface lot. The property also sits directly across the street from the Delta Center, which hosts more than 300 events per year.
Mixed-Use
Salt Lake City, UT
Parking Garages & Surface Lot
The Gateway's parking operation wasn't broken. It was doing its job and collecting payments, but that's where it stopped. There was no proactive strategy to grow revenue or improve the experience for the thousands of drivers visiting each week.
Event nights were a clear example of where revenue was going uncaptured. Delta Center attendees regularly claimed they were visiting Gateway tenants to pay lower rates, and without a reliable way to verify intent, there was no way to capture the revenue those drivers should have generated.
The driver experience had similar gaps. The gated, pay-on-exit model created long lines during peak exits, with congestion stretching through the garages and drivers feeling, as some told local news outlets, trapped.
"We had large groups of people exiting at the same time. Each transaction seemed to take forever, which would then create bottlenecking in the garages, long lines, people honking their horns. We had a couple news articles where people mentioned that they felt trapped in the parking garage."
Monthly parkers dealt with a $60 fob fee, finicky hardware, and paper validation processes, creating unnecessary friction because they didn't know a better way existed.
"For the office tower employees, every monthly parker had to have a key fob. It was a $60 fee, which we got so many complaints about, and once you had it, it was a little bit finicky... We were still using paper validations, and it was really a cumbersome process."
The Gateway team wasn't dissatisfied with their operator. They just hadn't yet seen how much more their parking asset could do.
After evaluating their options, The Gateway partnered with AirGarage.
Initially, the team was hesitant about going gateless. For a property managing thousands of daily parkers across multiple facilities, gates had felt like the only reliable way to control access and ensure compliance. AirGarage replaced them with License Plate Recognition (LPR) Cameras and on-the-ground enforcement, delivering the same accountability without the bottlenecks, hardware failures, or friction.
AirGarage also introduced a dynamic pricing model built for The Gateway's split-demand profile. On event nights, drivers are prompted to identify whether they're attending an arena event or visiting a Gateway tenant. Arena attendees are charged event pricing, and tenant visitors receive a standard rate once validated in a business. The system drives foot traffic to Gateway businesses while capturing full revenue from event parking.
Key fobs were eliminated entirely. Monthly drivers now receive digital validations tied to their license plates, meaning no $60 fee and no trip to the parking office to pick up credentials.
The owner dashboard gave Vestar's finance team access to real-time performance data. Instead of waiting on end-of-month reports, they had a live view of performance across the asset and the ability to adjust strategy at any point.
"AirGarage works with us more as a partner than a vendor. If there's something that's not working quite right, we've never once heard the words from AirGarage, 'we can't.' They always figure out a solution, and not just a solution, but one that actually works."
Within the first six months, The Gateway saw a 14.3% revenue increase year-over-year, congestion at exits disappeared, and the experience for both daily commuters and visitors improved substantially.
"Once we saw that our revenue numbers were increasing, we quickly saw that the fear of losing those gates shouldn't have been a fear at all."
Dynamic pricing gave event attendees a reason to arrive early and visit Gateway businesses, turning event nights into a boost for retail and dining.
"We've seen a smoother guest experience, higher revenue, and an elevated overall experience."
For Bryan Hill and the Vestar team, the outcome tied directly to what they'd set out to accomplish: a better experience for guests and stronger returns from an asset that had more to give.
"To anyone out there thinking their current parking system is good enough, we honestly thought the same thing. We just weren't aware of all the other possibilities."
