Millennium Gateway Testbed Challenge

City Tech has launched a Challenge for you to pilot your technology, product, or idea in a worldclass testbed in Chicago.

Through the Millennium Gateway Innovation Lab, City Tech is integrating parking more fully into urban transportation systems, developing tech-enabled solutions for smart infrastructure management, and cultivating value-added services and space uses.

Whether it’s a multi-modal transit hub, data center, or underground art gallery, parking facilities hold endless potential for mobility uses and flexible venue space. As the Lab's anchor facility, Millennium Garages offers 3.8 million square feet and connects to Chicago's economic core and top cultural attractions.

Challenge winners will be able to test their idea in a worldclass testbed, engage with City Tech's extensive partner ecosystem, and get their product in front of a larger audience.

Submit your idea for a chance to test your product or showcase innovative ways to utilize this unique underground space. Entries will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Participants may submit their ideas to one of the following tracks:

Track 1: Mobility

Pilot your technology that improves parking operations and transforms parking facilities into multi-modal mobility hubs. We’re especially looking for tech-focused solutions around freight and smart infrastructure management of the garage itself.

Past and ongoing pilots conducted include: creating a 3D map of parking facilities, optimizing electric vehicle charging turnover through advanced sensing technology, and installing Bluetooth entry gates for seamless garage access.

Track 2: Pop-Up Drive-In

Let your ideas run wild. This track is intended to repurpose the vast space of parking garages and facilities in creative ways.

Accessible space for public functions has become more scarce due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Whether entering a drive-in movie theater or walking around an underground art installation, parking garages offer flexible space for public and private uses that benefit today's social distancing concerns and beyond.

Submit your idea for a chance to test your product or showcase
innovative uses of this unique underground space.

How to Apply

Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis. All entrants will be notified within two weeks of submission. If selected, participants will be invited for a follow-up meeting where they will pitch their product/testbed needs to City Tech Collaborative staff.

Submit Your Ideas Here

About the Millennium Gateway Innovation Lab

The Millennium Gateway Innovation Lab is a groundbreaking partnership to shape the future of the parking industry and urban mobility. As a consortium of asset owners, parking and mobility operators, technology providers, policymakers, and other thought leaders, Lab participants work to integrate parking more fully into urban transportation systems, develop tech-enabled solutions for smart infrastructure management, and cultivate value-added services and space uses.

The Lab is part of the Advanced Mobility Initiative at City Tech Collaborative, an urban solutions accelerator that tackles problems too big for any single sector or organization to solve alone. Founding members and strategic partners of the Millennium Gateway Innovation Lab include Millennium Garages, SP+, and Arrive, the National Parking Association, the International Parking & Mobility Institute, and the City of Chicago.