Hartford Business Journal

20 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 5, 2026 Among the more speculative possi- bilities are vertiports — takeoff and landing sites for electric aircraft — atop parking garages. Lazowski said LAZ is discussing rooftop vertiports and drone deliveries with a California company. Hartford tech hub Despite the leadership transition and LAZ Parking's continued expansion across North America, Lazowski said the company has no plans to move its headquarters from Hartford. Incoming co-CEOs DiPaolo, who leads LAZ's Midwest operations, and Svendblad, who heads its West Coast division, will spend significant time in Hartford, he said. "It will remain our head- quarters," Lazowski said. "And that's non-negotiable." The company's technology push will be a big part of job growth at LAZ's headquarters in Hartford's Gold Building, a 26-story downtown office tower partially owned by Lazowski's real estate investment company. The company's recent announcement of its leadership restructuring also projected 1,000 new jobs nationwide in the coming year and the expansion of its Hartford headquarters to accommo- date more than 100 new employees. Lazowski said the Hartford jobs will predominantly be "higher-level" positions, including roles in technology, finance, legal, marketing and human resources. He expects those local hires to be completed over the next two years. Among the projects underway is an AI-assisted system that reads customers' license plates as they enter and leave LAZ-operated parking facilities. The company is testing the technology at a garage attached to the Gold Building. That work will require LAZ to hire soft- ware engineers and other technology employees in Hartford, Lazowski said. Another business under develop- ment involves helping cities manage competing demands for curb space. LAZ already manages more than 200 municipal parking operations, including in Chicago. Lazowski said cities increasingly need help accom- modating traditional parking along with deliveries, ride-hailing services, bicycles, EV charging and, potentially, autonomous vehicles. LAZ is developing technology and consulting services to help munici- palities decide how much to charge for curbside parking and where to put bus stops, ride-hailing pickup areas, pedestrian infrastructure and loading zones. The goal is to reduce congestion and make busy city centers easier to navigate, Lazowski said. He expects curb management to become a separate division and a major line of business within five years. "There's a huge problem throughout the United States in major cities with congestion, double parking, lack of smart loading zones," Lazowski said. "And we have a technology that we've developed and consulting that we can do for cities to make the movement of that work a lot better." LAZ Parking's next generation prepares to take the wheel By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com L ong before they were tapped to run North America's largest parking operator, Tony DiPaolo and John Svendblad were learning the business much closer to the pavement. DiPaolo was considering leaving college athletics for commercial real estate when LAZ Parking recruited him. Svendblad got his start parking cars while attending Boston College, not imagining it would become a career. Beginning Jan. 1, the two executives will take over day-to-day leadership of the Hartford-based company that CEO Alan Lazowski started 45 years ago with a single valet operation at a downtown Hartford restaurant. DiPaolo, president of LAZ's Midwest operations, and Svendblad, president of its West Coast division, will become co-CEOs, while Lazowski moves into the newly created executive chairman role. The transition puts two executives who have spent most of their careers at LAZ Parking in charge of a company with about 23,000 employees, 5,700 locations across North America and $3 billion in managed revenue. Lazowski said their experience rising through the company's ranks was a key factor in their selection as co-CEOs. "They've done every job in the company," Lazowski said. "It was an obvious choice. They both have unbelievable skill sets, and they work together like brothers." Getting their starts DiPaolo first encountered LAZ while working in Boston College's athletic department, where he oversaw opera- tions outside the football stadium on game days. LAZ handled parking, putting DiPaolo in regular contact with co-founder Jeffrey Karp and Marc Lutwack, now a managing partner. DiPaolo said he was impressed by how senior executives treated employees and worked alongside them during early morning game-day preparations. Over two years, DiPaolo became friendly with the LAZ team while recon- sidering his career in college athletics, which had been paying him about $1,000 a month, he said. After receiving a job offer from a commercial real estate company that owned three parking properties managed by LAZ, DiPaolo recalls asking Karp and Lutwack for their opinion of the prospective employer. They had other ideas. "They said: 'No, don't go work for them, come work for us,'" DiPaolo recalled. The pitch was simple: Give LAZ a year. If it didn't work out, the company could use its real estate connections to help DiPaolo find a job in that industry. DiPaolo joined LAZ in March 2005, overseeing parking at Worcester Medical Center and earning $36,000 a year. "I thought I was the richest person in the world," DiPaolo, now 49, said. In 2006, LAZ partnered with Morgan Stanley in a deal to operate four major Chicago parking garages totaling more than 9,000 spaces. DiPaolo moved to Chicago to help oversee the operation. Svendblad's introduction to parking came in 1997 while he was attending Boston College. His father called from Colombia with difficult news: A natural disaster had devastated the family farm, leaving the family unable to continue paying his tuition and rent. Svendblad took a job parking cars for a small valet company owned as a side business by a spinning instructor. (From left) LAZ Parking incoming co-CEO Tony DiPaolo, co-founder and CEO Alan Lazowski, and incoming co-CEO John Svendblad. Contributed Photo "I went from going out in Boston as a college student and going to parties to then parking the car for my friends who were going out to parties," Svendblad recalled. "And it was a humbling expe- rience, but it was the best experience I could have had in my life." Svendblad, who later attended Suffolk University, and a friend took on manage- ment of the valet business and earned equity stakes. He held a 15% stake when it was sold to regional operator Ultimate Parking. Before the sale, the business had grown to about 200 employees and $3 million in annual revenue. A year later, LAZ bought Ultimate Parking. Svendblad was considering graduate school, but a meeting with LAZ's leaders in Florida persuaded him to stay. Lazowski also offered Svendblad the opportunity to open a LAZ office in Los Angeles. His wife supported the move. "She bought us one-way tickets and Jeffrey Karp Shifting Gears Continued from page 19

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