The People Behind
the Projects
Pawel is an experienced developer, consultant, entitlement expert, and community steward who combines the vision of a long-time entrepreneur with the structured approach of a corporate executive. He has been directly responsible for the acquisition, design, development, or redevelopment of nearly $2.5 billion of mixed-use, condominium and multi-family communities totaling over 2,000 units, as well as multiple retail and entertainment properties.
He began his career in Chicago, IL in 1994, founding his first design-build company and later building a large scale, vertically integrated full service real estate development company, Metropolitan Development Enterprises. Pawel has negotiated millions of dollars in incentives, tax credit deals, and complex entitlements and is considered a zoning and urban planning expert. He has served on multiple zoning boards and city and state commissions, providing guidance and expert advice to many cities and NGOs. Prior to founding Metropolitan Development Company in Austin, Texas, Pawel served as Executive Vice President of Development at Intracorp, one of the largest condominium developers in North America, building its Austin office and team. While at Intracorp, he managed many projects including 44 East, Austin's project of the year in 2022, a $300MM, 49-story downtown condominium high-rise.
A native of Warsaw, Poland, Pawel studied architecture at Warsaw Polytechnic University (Warsaw University of Technology) and at the University of Detroit Mercy, with additional study at the International Academy of Merchandising & Design in Chicago. An avid bass guitarist, he was also one of the pioneers of the original punk rock scene in Warsaw, Poland in the mid-1980s. Pawel lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughters and is active in the Austin music scene, writing music and performing with his local bands.
A construction industry expert with 19 years of experience, Matt has been part of contracting billions of dollars in construction projects across the Dallas, Austin, and Houston markets, spanning multifamily, mixed-use, retail, office, senior living, and hospitality. He has worked for the largest general contracting firms in Texas and continues to maintain strong relationships with dozens of construction partners across the state. At Metropolitan, Matt brings that depth of contractor knowledge and market relationships directly to bear on project planning, cost estimation, and construction partner selection, ensuring MDC’s projects are competitively bid, properly structured, and delivered to the highest standard. He currently oversees multiple active projects for Metropolitan while maintaining current market cost models that keep MDC’s underwriting grounded in real-world construction economics.
Matt is married with nine children and holds a degree in Construction Science from the University of Oklahoma, where he played NCAA tennis. He also serves on the Hood County Development Commission.
A seasoned commercial real estate development professional with over 15 years of experience spanning acquisitions, entitlement, finance, underwriting, and project management. As Vice President of Finance and Project Development at Metropolitan, Brandon oversees site evaluation, entitlement negotiation, capital stack formation, analytics and underwriting, and project execution, ensuring alignment with tenant, buyer, lender, and investor objectives.
Prior to Metropolitan, Brandon led the full lifecycle of new-build Class A office projects totaling nearly $100 million at Elevate Growth Partners, provided project management support and underwriting for Urbanspace Development’s condominium high-rise in downtown Austin, The Modern, and spent nearly seven years growing from Intern to Project Manager at Schlosser Development. He is known for his analytical rigor and collaborative leadership.
Brandon holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Denver’s Franklin L. Burns School of Real Estate & Construction Management with a focus in real estate finance.
A native Austinite, Brandon now calls Austin home once again with his wife and children, and is active in the local Jewish Community and his daughters’ school.
A Licensed Broker with the Texas Board of Realtors and development sales specialist with nearly two decades of experience in luxury residential development across San Antonio and Central Texas, Stephanie brings an extraordinary combination of sales expertise, market intuition, and development consulting acumen to Metropolitan. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources and Business from Texas A&M University, where she was a Dean’s Honor Roll recipient, a foundation that informs the disciplined, client-centered approach she applies to every engagement. She has a deep understanding of buyer behavior, product positioning, and the competitive dynamics of the Texas Triangle market, helping MDC calibrate product design and pricing strategy from the earliest stages of project development.
Her experience on the sales side of complex, multi-phase residential developments gives her a unique perspective that informs everything from unit mix and amenity programming to sales sequencing and market timing, making her a true development partner, not just a sales resource. Her relationships with buyers, brokers, and municipal stakeholders across the region make her an invaluable link between MDC’s development pipeline and the market it serves.
With over 20 years of experience in real estate development accounting and financial management, Teresa Bednarczyk serves as Corporate Controller at Metropolitan, overseeing all accounting, bookkeeping, financial reporting, and compliance processes across the firm. She began her career in the mid-1990s in Chicago as an Illinois licensed CPA and Controller for a large vertically integrated development company,managing dozens of construction loans, investor equity reporting, P&L and balance sheets, and over $1 billion in cash flow across a decade of complex projects spanning in-house development, construction, property management, and sales.
After relocating to Austin, Teresa served as an in-house accountant for one of North America’s largest condominium developers before rejoining Mr. Hardej at Metropolitan. She now coordinates closely with lenders, investors, outside CPAs, auditors, and MDC’s in-house financial analysts, and brings deep expertise in construction lending, accounts payable and receivable, draws, compliance, revenue processing, and both internal and external audit processes,carefully monitoring both company and client funds at every stage of a project.
Teresa lives in Austin with her husband and is passionate about international travel, having visited more than 20 countries across nearly every continent.
A construction veteran with nearly 40 years of experience across the U.S., Cezary Szopinski leads all construction operations at Metropolitan, overseeing contractor relationships, quality control, and project delivery. Educated in both Europe and the U.S., he began his career at a young age in Chicago, IL, where he spent two decades on complex mixed-use projects,including over a dozen historic adaptive re-use conversions transforming bicycle factories, meatpacking plants, schools, and churches into first-class housing and commercial uses. For much of his Chicago career he was a recognized leader in high-density condominium and apartment construction, managing a boutique general construction company affiliated with an award-winning development firm and serving as Project Manager, Vice President, and President across Metropolitan Development, RDM, and Enterprise Construction. His GC company self-performed 16 projects comprising approximately 1,100 units, including condo conversions and high- and mid-rise buildings of multiple structural classifications.
He relocated to Central Texas in 2017 and joined Intracorp, one of North America’s largest condominium developers, where he delivered several condo projects including 44 East, a 49-story high-rise tower named the 2022 Project of the Year in Austin. Over his career, Cezary has managed more than 30 projects totaling over 1,500 housing units. His construction expertise spans virtually every major structural system, including cast-in-place concrete, red iron steel frame, pre-cast floor systems, CFS, CMU bearing, and stick-built lumber construction. He consistently joins projects from the earliest planning stages through completion and owner turnover, with an unwavering focus on quality control and risk mitigation.
A graduate of Gdańsk Polytechnical University in Poland with a degree in Construction Project Management, Cezary lives in Austin with his wife. He is passionate about history and archaeology, is an avid nature enthusiast, and loves to travel the world.
A 35+ year commercial real estate professional and native of Central Texas, Eric brings a rare combination of appraisal expertise, brokerage acumen, and development experience to Metropolitan. He holds the prestigious MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute, the highest credential in the appraisal profession, held by fewer than 10,000 practitioners worldwide, as well as the CCIM designation from the CCIM Institute, which recognizes mastery of investment analysis, market analysis, and financial decision-making in commercial real estate. He also holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Eric spent 20 years as a review appraiser with Frost Bank, ordering and reviewing thousands of appraisals on existing properties and proposed commercial deals across Texas, spanning retail, office, medical office, multifamily, condominiums, industrial, mixed-use, farm and ranch, and special-use properties. That breadth of exposure gave Eric an unusually complete picture of how lenders evaluate risk and value across every asset class, a perspective that directly informs MDC’s underwriting and site selection process. He also brings court and eminent domain experience, having served as an expert witness in valuation disputes.
His deep appraisal background, layered with brokerage experience and now hands-on involvement in ground-up development, gives Eric a multi-dimensional view of real estate that few practitioners possess. At Metropolitan, he contributes to site evaluation, deal structuring, and market analysis, helping the team identify not only what a site is worth today, but what it can become.
