
Scott Greenberg
President & CEO
Scott D. Greenberg is a real estate visionary and technologist, who conceived, built and operates various award-winning hospitality, retail, multi-family residential, entertainment and mixed-use developments. His latest endeavor (Smash INTERACTIVE) is to create a ground breaking, professional caliber Esports Stadium featuring a proprietary, super large-scale, virtual reality free roam arena. Scott Greenberg’s first Esports Stadium will be built under the name SURGE stadium in downtown Chicago.
SMASHotels was the awarded Marriott’s 2019 winner of Best Hotel Experience in North America for a full service hotel.
A design perfectionist, Mr. Greenberg has created many landmark properties including:
- 444 Social, a 302-unit luxury apartment community located in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Mr. Greenberg has elevated the lifestyle residential experience with a variety of innovations in building design and community amenities, including trailblazing an on-line platform (solely for residents) in order to improve the residents’ connectivity and interaction with onsite property management and sense of community, with the goal of improved resident retention.
- Hotel EMC2, a 195-room full service lifestyle hotel located in downtown Chicago themed around the intersection of Art & Science and one of the top featured hotels within the upper-upper lifestyle Autograph by Marriott Collection Brand®.
- theWit Hotel, a 310-room full service lifestyle hotel located in downtown Chicago themed around wit and curiosity and one of the most distinct Doubletree by Hilton® hotels, which also features ROOF, “one of the top three rooftop lounges in the world.” (Travel + Leisure).
- CityPark Lincolnshire, a 50-acre mixed use development in Lincolnshire, Illinois including Viper Alley, a live entertainment and private event facility.
Recently, Mr. Greenberg has founded Smash INTERACTIVE (with his partner, Mr. Chris Lai), which is pioneering new forms of hospitality-based entertainment by leveraging the global growth of Esports and melding it with the emerging tools of large-scale virtual reality gaming, live entertainment and broadcast streaming, as well as high capacity food and beverage operations.
Mr. Greenberg’s background spans 30 years in various aspects of low and high-rise construction, land development and financing. With a transaction history totaling over $1 billion, Mr. Greenberg has been directly involved in the ownership and operation of for-sale residential, rental apartments, industrial, retail, office and hospitality properties.
While financially conservative, Mr. Greenberg’s formula for success arises from his ability to fuse art, technology, trends and design to deliver uniquely impactful consumer experiences, which consistently outpaces his competition. He revolutionized the lifestyle hotel segment with theWit Hotel, earning the “Developer of the Year” award by Hilton for this signature development, and Hotel EMC2 has been awarded the Autograph Hotel new hotel of the year for 2017 by Marriott Corporation.
Mr. Greenberg typically looks outside of the retail and hospitality industry for inspiration. He is a master of trend-spotting and translating lifestyle behaviors and entertainment into a live experience. In 2012, Mr. Greenberg created the first dedicated and permanent 3D video-mapping surface in a rooftop lounge, and in the Spring of 2019 (to stay way ahead of his competition) once again transformed the ROOF space by installing two unique video displays, including a one-of-kind, forty foot wide, 8K, artistic video wall and a second, conventional full HD-LED, 1.4 pixel pitch quality, video display.
As President of SMASHotels and co-founder of Smash INTERACTIVE, Mr. Greenberg will continue to build the next generation of dynamic, engaging, purposeful and interactive hospitality environments which will meet the changing expectations of tomorrow’s consumers and tenants, in various markets across the country.
Mr. Greenberg is a member of the Board of Directors of Project SYNCERE, a not-for-profit dedicated to bringing engineering teaching and engineering and STEM opportunities to underserved minority youth in Chicago and other urban areas of the country.
Mr. Greenberg received a Bachelor’s Degree from Claremont Men’s College and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Columbia University.