Matthew Walters

Board Member, Detroit Riverfront Conservancy
Owner, Walters Group

Matt Walters moved back to Southeast Michigan thinking he wanted to open a restaurant along Detroit's east riverfront.

The Milford native had spent nearly three years floating around the wine industry, starting with a back-breaking 90-hour-a-week job on a vineyard in South Africa, then working at a large-scale winery in California's Sonoma County, followed by a stint as a wine sales representative in Chicago.

Then, in the fall of 2013, he volunteered on Mike Duggan's campaign for mayor, which led to a position on the new mayor's transition team and then a full-time job in the administration working under veteran economic development attorney F. Thomas Lewand, Duggan's group executive for the Jobs and Economy Team.

In early 2014, while Detroit was still mired in bankruptcy court and Duggan's power was limited under an emergency manager, the Jobs and Economy Team consisted of Lewand and Walters.

"I didn't know anything about municipal government," Walters admits.

But now he does.

Walters is one of Lewand's two principal deputies and has played a major behind-the-scenes role in shepherding some of Detroit's biggest economic development projects in a generation:

  • Ford Motor Co.'s $740 million redevelopment of Michigan Central Station and establishment of an autonomous vehicle tech campus in Corktown

  • Dan Gilbert's development of a skyscraper at the site of the former J.L. Hudson's department store on Woodward Avenue; development of the Monroe blocks; expansion of One Campus Martius; and rehabilitation of the Book Tower and Book Building

  • Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' $2.5 billion investment in converting its Mack Avenue engine plants into a new Jeep assembly plant and modernization of its nearby Jefferson North Assembly Plant

  • The Detroit Pistons' new corporate headquarters and training facility in New Center

Each real estate development deal was layered with complex challenges involving financing, taxes, construction permitting and community impact.

 

"Matt can take on any problem or tricky situation and will not stop until it is figured out," Lewand said.