On Burbank Street — a less-than-a-mile-long road tucked between the west side of Dallas Love Field and Brook Hollow Golf Club — sits a costly miscalculation City Hall made three years ago.

For $1.58 million of airport revenue, the city leased from Viceroy Regal LP a smoothly paved 2.8-acre parking lot, which is next door to a tech company and not far from a steakhouse on the corner with Harry Hines Boulevard.

But the lot is rarely, if ever, used.

City officials say the story of the parking lot is one of unfortunate timing. But even in early 2016, the city — which had already committed to a massive new parking garage at Love Field — misread the parking situation and the impact of app-based ride-hailing services on the airport. And the city will be stuck with that decision for about two more years.

Mark Duebner, the city’s aviation director, said that at the time, “there was a real rush for land around Love Field” and “everything was getting very expensive and there was a scarcity.”

The thinking, Duebner said, was to provide the airport — finally freed of Wright amendment restrictions — some much-needed flexibility.

The city also had a sense of urgency as the airport’s remarkable rise in passenger traffic began. Love Field in 2013 had 8 million travelers. Last year, that number was double those totals.

And the jump in traffic had previously put parking spots at a premium.

During the 2014 Thanksgiving holiday, a little over a month after long-haul destinations were finally allowed at the city-owned airport, Love Field ran out of parking spaces. In December 2014, the Dallas City Council accelerated plans for a new 5,000-space parking garage — a project that cost $208 million. The garage opened last fall.

The city also entered short-term leases with other lots to make space for the increased traffic — at least until the new garage came online. The city added the 1,300-space Love Connection remote lot, a 700-space Southwest Airlines-owned lot, and 250 spaces from the privately owned Parking Spot next to the airport within a year after the 2014 shortage.

“We did not have control of any land of any size to do anything,” Duebner said. “We were scrambling for assembling some land.”

1 / 3A locked fence and empty parking lot sat in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas on Feb. 6. (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3A combination lock ensures the parking lot stays empty in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3A locked fence and empty parking lot is seen Feb. 6, 2019, in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas. (Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

Here’s where the vacant lot came in: After another spike in parking requests during the 2015 holiday season, the aviation department debated whether it could move its taxi queue — which sits behind long-term parking and rental-car businesses near the airport’s entrance — to a different location. In turn, the city could use the old taxi queue as temporary parking.

Even though the lot was more remote, it was “a good lot, right-sized for a taxi queue,” Duebner said.

But that never happened. At the same time the city entered into the new agreement, companies like Uber and Lyft were growing their presence in Dallas.

The companies had already been operating in Dallas for some time. In 2014, after months of contentious debate, the City Council overhauled its transportation-for-hire ordinance to allow Uber and Lyft to operate legally in Dallas, including at Love Field. Afterward, demand for traditional taxis dropped significantly to 500 pickups a day from 1,200 pickups a day. App-based ride services now account for 2,500 pickups daily, Duebner said.

1 / 3The city leases an empty parking lot in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas near Dallas Love Field.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) 2 / 3The city leases an empty parking lot in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas near Love Field.(Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer) 3 / 3A locked fence and empty parking lot are seen Feb. 6, 2019, in the 2200 block of Burbank Street in Dallas.(Ryan Michalesko / Staff Photographer)

But the Burbank lot lease sailed through City Hall without any public discussion. The City Council agreed to a five-year agreement — through the start of 2021 — with Viceroy LP. The annual cost: $316,128.

The city council’s Economic Development committee didn’t discuss the measure, and the lease passed as a consent agenda item during the Jan. 27, 2016 council meeting.

Council member Rickey Callahan — who chaired the Economic Development Committee then — said it was impossible at the time to accurately project the impact of app-based transportation on traffic patterns at Love Field.

“All you can ever do as a city is to work ahead ... and make your plan,” Callahan said.

Callahan said that the city might be well served to look into other options — perhaps subleasing the property to another tenant.

Stephen Rogers, the president of Viceroy Regal’s parent company, Uptown-based Viceroy Investments, did not return multiple calls for comment.

Duebner said that for now, his department is “warehousing the lot as an asset.” It has been used sporadically over the past three years, he said, most recently as equipment storage and auxiliary parking for the general contractor for the garage from August 2017 through March 2018.

When Love Field starts construction work on runaways on the west side of the airport, near Denton Road, the lot could be used again, Duebner said.

“It’s there, and we plan on using it, but we haven’t bid the construction yet, so we don’t know the contractor’s needs,” he said.

Until then, the lot sits empty.