There are those who stand to profit from downtown’s revitalization – and then there’s Joe Lumer.

Unlike some of the flashy developers who have stolen much of the spotlight, Lumer – one of the largest owners of surface parking lots downtown – has flown mostly under the radar.

His family founded Joe’s Parking and has a near-majority stake in Five Star Parking, the two biggest surface parking lot owners downtown.

Between the two operations, Lumer estimates the companies have about 10,000 parking spaces, which would give him control of roughly 10 percent of all downtown’s parking spots – both public and private.

“I would say we own considerable land,” Lumer said. “My family has been in the parking business since the early 1950s.”

With some developers willing to pay $300 a foot for undeveloped land to build soaring condominium towers downtown, Lumer has begun slowly selling off properties his family spent decades cobbling together.

Last year, Lumer sold a roughly 120,000-square-foot parking lot in downtown’s Old Bank District at the corner of Fourth and Main streets to Saeed Far Kandapour, who is planning two 21-story condominium towers with shops on the ground floor.

Lumer also sold Trammell Crow Residential a 100,000-square-foot surface lot in Little Tokyo at First and Alameda streets. The company is nearing completion on the 300-unit, $66 million first phase of the Alexan Savoy – a three-phase project with 500 total units and with rents starting at $1,400 a month.

“Those are the two major ones,” Lumer said. “But we have probably sold more land than anyone downtown.”

Many more future developments, both housing and commercial, will likely take place on surface parking lots. Already in Little Tokyo, residents have formed a parking task force to look into how to replace the parking consumed by development.

A larger debate is taking place citywide about whether the city needs to intervene by constructing public garages or by requiring developers of surface lots to replace those spaces – in addition to creating enough parking for residents and retailers in their projects.

Lumer argues that public intervention isn’t necessary, but he is concerned about the pace of development downtown and the potential of a real estate bubble.

“We saw the Japanese come in the late 1980s and we all know what happened with that,” he said. “We are very conservative and careful people. We are hoping this push for residential development continues but maybe not at the breakneck speed it’s at right now.”