Since 2008, Mr. Kwatinetz has been the Managing Partner of QBL Real Estate, a public/private and impact investment advisory firm.
Matthew is currently engaged by the City of Austin to launch the Austin Economic Development Corporation on their behalf.
From 2010, he worked with Kinzer Real Estate Services as the VP of Finance and Economics, supporting industrial site selection and tenant-side office transactions for such clients as the University of Washington, Alaska Airlines, and Starbucks Corporation. For Starbucks, he led a team to negotiate the creation of a $150M manufacturing plant in Augusta, GA.
Following that project, he was recruited by Augusta’s Mayor Copenhaver to create and run Augusta Regional Collaboration Corporation (ARCC), a public development corporation which worked with the City and State to consolidate a new research university into the downtown, catalyzing $100M+ of investment in the urban core. ARCC also led the the deal to attract Unisys to Augusta, and also led the negotiation and public financing of The Beacon, a ground up development that was the first value capture ground lease in Augusta’s history. ARCC's headquarters was located in one of architect IM Pei's first US buildings, for which Kwatinetz led the adaptive reuse.
From 2014-2020, Mr. Kwatinetz worked for the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). At EDC he was the the Executive Vice President of Asset Management, in charge of a 67M+ square foot real estate portfolio. Matthew’s responsibilities included: leasing, development, repositioning, strategic planning, operations, collections/litigations, financial reporting, tenant improvements. During his tenure he increased occupancy to 96%, maintained a 99%+ collections rate, increased net income by 15%, brought over 2M SF into the portfolio, and supervised over $1B of development by the asset management capital construction team. Selected assets include: the 42nd Street Development Project, Metrotech, Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bush Made In NY Campus, the public retail markets including New Essex Street Market, Coney Island, and the South Street Seaport. For EDC, Kwatinetz also ran PortNYC, the third largest port in the US, which includes the NY Cruise Terminals, South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, and DockNYC. Matthew led the negotiations, construction, and operations team that launched the $600M+ NYC Ferry system, which is the largest expansion of commuter ferry service in US history. Before running Asset Management for NYCEDC, Kwatinetz was an SVP in the Real Estate Transaction Services group, selected transactions: Bedford Union Armory, Caton Flats, Coney Island Amphitheater, Loew’s Kings Theatre, Union Square Tech Hub, Sunnyside Yard feasibility study. Kwatinetz was the lead member of the Mayor's Affordable Real Estate for Artists (AREA) program, which is the largest affordable artist work space initiative in the country. Kwatinetz also worked with the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment to save The Power Station recording studio in Manhattan and turn it into the permanent home of Berklee School of Music alongside a working recording studio and music virtual reality library.
From 1999, he worked in Seattle for a variety of cultural organizations and festivals, and then served as the developer and general contractor of an adaptive reuse of a 18,000 square foot 1917 auto-warehouse to create a cultural incubator, Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC), which included three theatres, an art gallery, restaurant, cultural co-working spaces, bar/cabaret and shared resources for artistic production including a scene shop, recording studio, and the birthplace of Brown Paper Tickets. He served as General Manager of the business and real estate for six years, doing all construction and leasing in house. He also was the Producing Artistic Director of CHAC, and Seattle Mayor Nichols named Kwatinetz a Seattle City Artist for theatre in 2007.
While in Seattle, Kwatinetz served as the founding Vice President of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce, and also founded and chaired the Arts and Entertainment Committee which organized the neighborhood cultural groups as well as re-starting the Capitol Hill Art Walk, with over 30 participating galleries. When imminent gentrification and rampant development threatened to overwhelm a decade of cultural progress, Matthew organized regional cultural workers and organizations and co-founded and sat on the Seattle Cultural Overlay District Advisory Committee—a Seattle City Council advisory board that developed zoning controls, financial programs and technical assistance for the City’s cultural groups which still exist today. Kwatinetz was then invited around the country to share lessons learned and coach other cultural communities in creating sustainable footprints in their cities. Matthew has sat on grant review panels, including for Art Patch (King County Public Health), 4Culture Special Projects and King County’s Cultural Real Estate Task Force.
Matthew is the Chair of the ULI NY District Technical Assistance Program and serves on the NY District Management Committee for ULI and on the national Public/Private Council. He is the Board Chair for the Augusta Regional Collaboration Corporation (Augusta, Georgia). Matthew is a Board Member of the Burning Man Project and their Senior Director of Real Estate. Kwatinetz is the Director of the NYU Urban Lab at Schack Institute of Real Estate, where he is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Real Estate Economics and Economic Development. He has been a featured speaker for Wharton, Harvard GSD, NYU, Columbia, Penn’s Insitutute for Urban Research, Port Industry Day, SUNY Maritime College, The New School, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), Americans for the Arts, NAIOP, Net Impact, and the Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities. Matthew received his MBA in Real Estate at The Wharton School, where he was named a Martin Bucksbaum scholar. He is a graduate of Deep Springs College and Harvard University, with honors.
