Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal | March 22, 2021 | HartfordBusiness.com By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com P rior to 2020, parking magnate Alan Lazowski had been through a number of economic downturns, but never had to furlough an employee. Then COVID-19 hit, upending a business he grew for four decades into a nearly $2 billion, 15,000 employee operation. As offices, stadiums and entertainment venues emptied this past year, demand for nearby parking spaces plummeted across LAZ Parking's 35-state footprint. At one point its daily parking business dropped by 95%. That cut in half the company's 2020 revenues. Lazowski had to furlough nearly half of his employees, a gutting decision for an executive who describes his business as a "people- first" operation that values its workers. But as temperatures rise with the spring, and COVID infection rates fall with increased vaccine distribution, Lazowski is only focused on the future. And he's in the middle of what he hopes to be a transformational period for LAZ Parking with intentions to remake the company into America's most innovative digital parking operator. That pivot includes adopting new technologies that allow for a completely hands-free parking experience to opening entirely new business lines within his parking properties like parcel delivery and ghost kitchens, in addition to deploying thousands of electric vehicle chargers across the country. "The future of parking is not only going to be around traditional parking," Lazowski said. "We're going to put 50,000 charging Lazowski eyes digital transformation of his parking empire Hartford booster Alan Lazowski talks future of parking, city Small, but dedicated group of developers aims to lead Hartford's renaissance By Greg Bordonaro and Sean Teehan gbordonaro@hartfordbusiness.com L ike many entrepreneurs, Alan Lazowski is an idealist. He saw opportunity nearly four decades ago to start a car-parking business and eventually built one of the country's largest parking operators with nearly $2 billion in annual revenue and 15,000 employees, pre-pandemic. One vision that's been harder for Lazowski to achieve is helping turn Hartford into a more vibrant 24/7 city. While Hartford has made strides over the last decade the pandemic brought its progress to a literal standstill. But as the city plots a post-COVID comeback, Lazowski is among a small but dedicated group of local and out-of-state investors who will play an outsized role dictating Hartford's future. That's because Lazowski — a longtime real estate investor and Hartford booster — has been much more active in downtown development in recent years, buying up Class A office and apartment properties and helping lead an ambitious $100 million redevelopment of Pratt Street, which many see as one of the city's most untapped assets. He's also trying to push forward with the conversion of his now empty Lewis Street office building into a boutique hotel. His ultimate goal is to transform Hartford from a commuter to a destination city that attracts more startups, established companies and people — both young and old — who visit and live here. "I think the vision is to make Hartford a great place to live, work and play," Lazowski said in a recent wide-ranging interview about the Continued on page 13 Continued on page 11 Alan Lazowski in LAZ Parking's new downtown Hartford headquarters in the Gold Building. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER

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