55+ said. Mark IV began meeting those needs with its Legacy Senior Living Communities. The communities give older adults the chance to live independently in apartments or townhouses, while making use of the additional services they need to continue doing so. Those services include full-service dining facilities, libraries, personal laundry services, transportation services, as well as security and fire systems, individual emergency call systems, and a 24hour staff. Since the first Legacy community, Legacy at Willow Pond, was built in Penfield, five others have sprouted around Monroe County, and there is one in Ontario County. Rick Herman, CEO of the Rochester Home Builders Association, said the development of the Legacy communities reflects an ability to see and make use of an opportunity for real estate development. “ To n y i s a v e r y a s t u t e businessman,” said Herman, who has known DiMarzo for about 25 years. “He was one of the pioneers in our area to say that the Baby Boomers are getting older, and they’re going to want different types of housing.” Those qualities also led Mark IV to look beyond the suburbs for development opportunities. “He was one of the first builders from the Rochester Home Builders Association that reached back into the city of Rochester and urban development,” Herman said.
As evidence of this, Herman pointed to Corn Hill Landing, the apartment complex that Mark IV completed on the Genesee River. Corn Hill features upscale apartments, thousands of feet of retail and restaurant space, boat docks, an underground garage and other amenities. Under DiMarzo’s leadership, Mark IV has grown into a leading real estate development firm that has built and owns properties throughout the Rochester area. The complete list of those properties includes about 2,000 apartments, another 1,000 or so apartments and town homes in the firm’s Legacy communities, and as many as 12 commercial properties, DiMarzo said. The firm has also built and sold about 3,500 town homes. Most of those properties are in Monroe County, though a small number are in Ontario County. “Our tax bill is over $20,000 a day,” he said. Mark IV manages all its own properties through management organizations developed especially for that purposes. The firm employs about 350 in winter, and as many as 450 in the summertime. The work of developing a property has grown harder over the years, DiMarzo said. Whereas he clinched his first deal with a signature on a paper bag, a developer or construction company can only break ground on a new project today after filing tomes of paperwork, and obtaining the approval of multiple government boards or committees.
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“It’s just an unlimited barrage of stuff you’ve got to go through,” DiMarzo said. “That’s probably the most challenging thing for me, now.” Whereas that process once took as little as six months, it can take a great deal longer nowadays. Mark IV spent nearly six years getting approval to break ground on one of its newest projects, the Champion Hills Country Club in Victor, which opened in May of 2010. The facility and its 120-acre golf course abut Legacy at the Fairways, Mark IV’s local senior living community. “You see that in Florida all the time, but up here you really don’t see too many integrations of golf courses to residential [quarters],” he said. Though DiMarzo is a golfer, has traveled extensively and enjoys spending time with his family, he admits to spending much of his time at work. Even with those gray hairs, the father of three grown children and grandfather of five still puts in 11-hour workdays. “I’m not running up the stairs, but I’ll run into any project, and I’ll work with you all the way,” he said. At one point, DiMarzo even took the time to hold office as CEO of the Rochester Home Builders Association. DiMarzo might turn his business over to the younger generation some day — his sons Christopher and Steven are both vice presidents at Mark IV — but that could be far in the future. “I don’t see retirement.”
Five things you didn’t know about Anthony DiMarzo… • One of his first jobs was as a translator. DiMarzo’s parents were Italian immigrants who spoke little English when they bought a grocery store on Verona Street, but they could converse with the neighborhood’s other Italian immigrants. They initially turned to their children for help serving those who spoke only English. “It was a family business,” DiMarzo said. • It’s all in the hair. DiMarzo credits
hard work and not an abundance of special skills for his own achievements as a developer. “See all this gray hair?” he said, smiling, “it didn’t happen overnight.” • Size didn’t matter. DiMarzo entered real estate while working at his family’s grocery store. Some might call that a small beginning. “The store was approximately 500 square feet,” he said
from his desk at Mark IV Enterprises, “about the size of this office.” • Or maybe it’s in the fingers. Though approaching 70, the president of Mark IV doesn’t sound as if he’s slowing down. “I’m out there pushing my finger around, saying, “Come on, let’s get this done, and I want it done this way,” he said.
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