"He's probably one of the more active developers that recycles property rather than tearing it down and building new on the sites," Venable said. "Sara Investments has been very good to work with. They are very open minded. They are very ethical and it's been a real pleasure doing business with them."

Venable said Sara Investment Real Estate is also poised to venture into Beloit. Schwartz owns the Napa Auto Parts property on Fourth Street and is in negotiations with the City of Beloit and Coldwell Banker Commercial McGuire Mears and Associates on two major development projects.

Like most business owners, Schwartz says the customer always comes first. In his case, that's the tenants and his investors. Putting a tenant first, however, requires a lot more patience than some landlords have.

Freedom Plastics President Steve Scaccia said he was impressed with how patient Schwartz was with the Tigre injecting molding facility in Janesville. Tigre manufacturers PVC fittings for small diameter plastic pipe used in building construction and is headquartered in Brazil. Sara Investment Real Estate purchased the facility on Beloit Avenue. The problem was that at the time, Tigre only was leasing a portion of the building and Schwartz's job was to fill the space.

Instead of filling the building after he bought it with somebody else, he listened to what Tigre said about its plans for the future. Schwartz held out to give Tigre an opportunity to make a decision.

"He stood still for a long period of time with nothing more than a maybe and without revenue coming in on the rest of the building," Scaccia said.

In the end Tigre ended up buying another company. It doubled the size of Tigre and brought in more injection molding machines to produce larger diameter products. Schwartz's patience, Scaccia said, really made a difference for Tigre and for Janesville.

"He lost revenue to work with this particular tenant and in the end it paid off," Scaccia said.

Scaccia said Schwartz is an up and coming force in the Janesville area and may help to rehabilitate many of its buildings. Schwartz is instrumental in an initiative to improve the City's west side, or the newly coined Westgate Business Corridor.

Sara also has been buying up properties to improve the west side business corridor near West Court Street.

"The goal is to turn West Court Street and the West side into a more active and viable area. There's a lot of rooftop growth that is happening both in Janesville and west of Janesville through Orfordville and Footville as well as Evansville," Schwartz said. "There is huge potential in the future. There's so many things going on."

Schwartz has no doubt his business will grow and he will be able to rehabilitate more buildings in Janesville. He's already faced challenges in his life and overcame them.

Schwartz founded the restaurant Upstairs Downstairs on State Street in Madison when he was only 19 years old in the 1970s. He grew the chain to include seven restaurants with a catering service. In the early 1990's, however, it became more challenging to do business with the pressure of more restaurant chains coming in.

Schwartz had to do something drastic -- sell off the restaurants and move his family into the basement of a duplex he owned in 1994. At that time he still owned some property where the restaurants were located and decided to focus on real estate. Although Sara took off, the experience with the restaurants never left Schwartz.

"It taught me about retail and what our tenants are thinking," Schwartz said. "I try to be sensitive to start ups, whether they are retail, industrial or office. I introduce them to the right people and light the path for where they need to go."

Although Schwartz said it may sound cliché, he strives to think of others first in his business. It's an approach that he found works for him.

"We have four groups that have to win -- tenants, employees, vendors and investors have to win. In this case the City of Janesville is in the vendor group," Schwartz said.

To keep public support, Schwartz said that he has a policy of rehabilitating existing buildings or vacant sites, but doesn't typically build on farm land.

"Truthfully there's plenty to do without taking more green space," Schwartz said. "I feel our generation hasn't done a great job of leaving our kids in a great spot."

Sara Investment Real Estate is also venturing into some charity support. After Schwartz took in a homeless 14-year-old a few years ago, he said his family started thinking about childhood and education. He has started assisting Child Development Inc., a nonprofit preschool designed for low income children under 5 years of age.

"Successful businesses always start with customer service first. I've learned to do that in charitable work. Charity is good training grounds for business," Schwartz said.

For more information visit www.sarainvest.com.