Veteran broker Michael Colacino is joining JLL to lead the Chicago-based firm's Tri-State brokerage.

Colacino left his post as CEO of tech-focused brokerage SquareFoot. He previously served as president of Savills for 16 years, starting when it was still Studley.

He joins JLL with the title of president and will work with Stephen Schlegel, the chief operating officer for the New York Tri-State, and Peter Riguardi, chairman and president of New York.

“Michael’s deep understanding of owner and occupier priorities, complemented by his expertise in technology, further positions JLL as the leading provider of commercial real estate consulting services in the city,” Schlegel said in a release from JLL announcing the appointment. “He will be a tremendous resource to both our internal team and our clients.”

Colacino was part of the Savills team that brokered Time Warner's landmark leases in Columbus Circle and Hudson Yards. He was also credited with playing a role in the merger between New York-based Studley and London-based Savills in 2014.

In 2019, he was named CEO at SquareFoot, which described itself as an office listing platform that combines proprietary technology with a team of brokers.

“It’s not easy for me to give up, so I fought hard to try to keep the company going forward,” Colacino told Commercial Observer of SquareFoot. “But eventually I wasn’t able to do that, and so the question is, what do you do next? And top of mind for me was JLL.”

He said SquareFoot's work started to dry up after the pandemic hit and that it now focuses on online lead generation as opposed to brokerage. The company raised $16M in a Series B round led by DRW Venture Capital in 2019 and acquired coworking and private workplace company Upsuite in 2021. Colacino started at JLL last week, CO reported.