Alan Lazowski is arguably Hartford’s most influential businessman.
He is the CEO and founder of LAZ Parking, one of the largest parking operators in the United States with about 12,000 employees and $1.8 billion in managed revenue. While his parking empire took a hit during the pandemic, it hasn’t slowed down his focus on the future.
He’s in the middle of what he hopes to be a transformational period for LAZ Parking with intentions to remake the company into a more innovative digital parking operator. That pivot includes adopting new technologies that allow for a completely hands-free parking experience to potentially opening 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.
In November, Lazowski announced a partnership with air transport infrastructure firm Skyports to develop vertiports for electric air taxis at LAZ facilities in Los Angeles.
Besides his core business, Lazowski has increasingly gotten into real estate development and investment in Hartford. He and New York landlord Shelbourne Global Solutions LLC teamed up in 2019 to buy the Gold Building for $70.5 million, and are partners, with developer Martin Kenny, on an ongoing $100-million redevelopment of downtown’s Pratt Street corridor. Lazowski and Kenny also acquired a 50% ownership stake in four large Class A apartment buildings in downtown Hartford, known as the Spectra apartments. They contain a combined 554 mostly market-rate apartments.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Lazowski served as a member of the United States Holocaust Museum’s Council and is a current board member of the national NAACP. He also serves on the boards of many local nonprofits.