Matthew Holmes

Biography: Matthew F. Holmes has been involved with retail commercial real estate since 1991 and is recognized as one the most transactional brokers on the West Coast. For the first ten years of his career, Mr. Holmes was a partner of Epsteen & Associates, a boutique tenant representation retail real estate brokerage with four offices throughout California, serving as principal partner & co-owner of the San Francisco office. In 2000, Mr. Holmes negotiated the sale of Epsteen & Associates Northern California division to BT/Terranomics Retail Services. Retail West was created in 2003 with his partner, Robert Kashian, and since that time has been recognized by Inc. Magazine and The San Francisco Business Times as one of the fastest growing businesses in the Bay Area and the country. During that time Mr. Holmes has helped orchestrate tenant roll outs all over Northern California for dozens of retailers such as Whole Foods Markets, Peet’s Coffee & Pet Food Express, in addition to a wide variety of start-ups. In addition to his extensive tenant representation business, Mr. Holmes has experience as both a broker and principal in the development and repositioning of several high profile lifestyle centers and urban retail redevelopments including the recently opened 330,000 square foot Fountains Lifestyle Center in Roseville, CA, the redevelopment of Pedro Point Shopping Center in Pacifica, CA, the creation, leasing and disposition of the Gilman District redevelopment in Berkeley, CA. Mr. Holmes is (or has been) an investor in various retailers and restaurants and has taken an active management role in developing selected merchants. Past investments include retail chains like Yoga Studio (now Yoga Works), Home Chef (now Viking), Jamba Juice, Noah’s Bagels, AG Ferrari Foods, Boo Koo & Taylor Stitch Clothing. Mr. Holmes also provided advisory board work to the chain Pet Food Express and the development company of Read Investments.