Butler is locked into paying for a new parking garage.

PNC Bank on Thursday sold the bonds that will pay for the structure, and Mayor Tom Donaldson signed off on them.

“This has been a long time coming,” Donaldson said. “It took a lot of moving pieces working together. It didn’t just fall into place.”

The $6.8 million bond issue will be paid off over 25 years.

Nick Falgione with PNC Bank said the city’s first interest payment will be due June 2016.

It will make interest payments every six months.

Its first principal payment won’t be due until December 2017, giving the garage time to open and start generating money for the city.

The principal payments to be made annually will range from $175,000 to $260,000 through 2027. The city will then have payments ranging from $825,000 to $1.9 million due in the years 2030, 2035 and 2040.

The interest on the bonds are not fixed. The short-term bonds have a rate between 1.55 percent and 2.4 percent, while the long-term bonds go as high as 4 percent.

The garage with its 239 spaces is to be built near the corner of Cunningham and McKean streets. It will join the planned neighboring Marriott Springhill Suites hotel as part of the Centre City project.

J.S. Capitol, the developer of the hotel, and city officials on Tuesday signed off on a number of loans and agreements on the two projects.

The hotel developer still has a few minor “loose ends” for the deal to be finished, but city officials said it is essentially done.

“The hotel transaction has progressed to the point where the city is comfortable proceeding with the bond issue for the construction of the tier garage,” said solicitor Jim Coulter. “The contracts should be awarded at the meeting next Monday at 7 p.m.”

Thomas Construction of Grove City is the general contractor for the garage.

The city had been waiting for the hotel developer to close on its loans and agreements before it moved forward with financing its parking garage.

City officials said they had to make sure the hotel would be built because the hotel will be the primary tenant of the new garage — guaranteeing to pay for 50 spaces every night.

Donaldson said there is no date set for when work on the hotel or garage will begin. But he said he expected it to start by the end of the year.

The city bond issue also will refinance existing parking authority debt and pay for work on the West New Castle Street bridge replacement project.