Up Close with Matt Keener
CBRE SVP Matt Keener is a powerhouse of big-box retail tenant rep—he counts Conn’s, Floral Décor, The Container Store and Gander Mountain among his clients and was CBRE Houston’s top retail broker last year.
It’s pretty well-known that Matt started off as an Army Ranger (read a bit about his military past here). He always knew real estate would be his second career; he got his undergraduate degree from USC in real estate, and went to UT grad school after getting out of the Army in 1991. Matt’s only held one job in the real estate industry—he started at Trammell Crow in 1994 (after his UT mentor recommended he interview there because at that point it had created and destroyed more millionaires than any Texas company) and was sent down to Houston to do retail brokerage. It was a trough in the industry, so Matt’s days were full of cold calling in the summer heat in a full suit. (It's not as bad as it sounds—the sweat got him respect/sympathy from shop owners and drew them into conversations...and ultimately, deals.) There, he got to spend the first 10 years of his career working with some of the best mentors in the industry—Alan Hassenflu, Lynn Davis, Mark Davis and Liz Jacob.
Matt says he started off exclusively repping Class-B shopping centers, which was basically all there was to do at the time. (He tells us so many young retail brokers take having new construction to lease for granted, but there wasn’t really any back then; even prolific developer TCC didn’t do its first new development during his tenure until the Uptown Collection in ’99.) His first tenant rep assignments really changed everything—he was awarded the Chipotle and Aaron Brothers accounts when TCC bought a tenant rep firm in Denver. Chipotle deals are very difficult, he says, but they absolutely are the best whetstone to sharpen a tenant rep broker’s skills, and hooked him on the service line. He did 25 deals with the restaurant before the account transitioned to Baker Katz, where he says it's in good hands. Pictured: while prospecting in LA for retailers for The Shops Downtown, Matt and colleagues Brian Ashby and Rachel Farris got to work out at Gold's Gym at Venice Beach (the Mecca of bodybuilding, Matt says, but Rachel might need to cut back on the whey).
Now Matt’s days are mostly defined by Conn’s; he’s been working as its master broker for the last five years, helping the brand expand nationally. That involves working deals in 13 states, particularly focusing on the Southeast right now. Besides expanding his geographical reach, Conn’s is broadening Matt’s product set—he’s been doing office and warehouse leases for Conn's as well. In Houston, Matt’s is working with YouFit, a new brand being rolled out by the founder of Planet Fitness. It's looking for moderate-income community-oriented sites around 18K SF. Here's Matt this morning at with his workout buddy of eight years, Tim Latham.
Matt’s about to check something off his bucket list—he’s been wanting to do one more big retail development, and "maybe" has one in the works now. His next big goal is being named EVP; a rare accomplishment in CBRE’s retail brokerage ranks, he says. Matt keeps in touch with his military past by helping fellow Army vets work through PTSD and by keeping in shape with a workout crew that exercises from 5:30 to 6:30 every morning. (They’re “older and creative,” he tells us, and come up with all sorts of crazy workouts fusing CrossFit and traditional exercises.) He wants to learn to kiteboard because one day he’d like to retire to Baja (pictured, he's strolling around there with his sons Zak and Maxx), and he’s expanding his cooking skills and loves it, mostly because of the wine-drinking that goes with it.
