Dan Migala has been doing an executive-in-residence year with Transwestern Sports and Entertainment and LAZ Parking and is doubling down with both to work at the intersection of mixed-use development and mobility.
Migala is becoming the Chief Impact Officer for LAZ and the Head of Innovation for Transwestern and will split his time between the two. He’ll work directly with LAZ founder, Chairman & CEO Al Lazowski and co-founder & Chief Culture Office Michael Harth, as well as Tim Katt and Larry Serota, who co-lead the Sports & Entertainment practice at Transwestern.
LAZ is the largest privately held parking, mobility and transportation company in North America, with numerous sports venue clients, while Transwestern is a national real estate company that’s recently launched a focused sports and entertainment vertical. It worked with the Phoenix Mercury on that team’s training facility project and is currently supporting the L.A. Sparks in their similar effort.
There aren’t any plans for the two companies to collaborate -- with Migala as connective tissue -- but it would make some sense as both companies’ main concerns grow in importance to the sports industry.
“Trying to figure out this new ecosystem of real state, mixed-use, and I kept hearing that they’re largely parking projects that happened to have real estate,” Migala said. “Finding the value unlocks and the deep understanding I have of how an owner thinks, that’s really the play here. From my perspective it’s about being a servant to the visionary owners.”
Migala, based in Denver, embarked on the executive-in-residence year after leaving Legends Global at the turn of the year. He’s been invigorated by the overlap in mixed-use development and the mobility solutions needed to keep them busy.
“Thinking 10 years out, these are the value-unlocks,” he said. “These are spaces that need deeper thought, need a deeper understanding of the fan experience, monetization, and design.”
Migala was with the Bears in the early 2000s when they were launching their website.
“This feels the same,” he said.
