Assistant Development Manager

Assistant Development Manager

Position Description

Title: Assistant Development Manager

Department: Development

Reports to: Senior VP of Development

Location: Fort Mill, SC — in-office with regular site presence

Classification: Full-time, exempt

Travel: Local, frequent — project sites, municipal offices, consultant offices

Position Summary

The Assistant Development Manager supports the execution of mixed-use development projects from predevelopment through delivery and stabilization. This is the entry point into our development team and the seat from which our development managers are grown.

The role is deliberately broad. Over a typical project cycle the Assistant Development Manager will touch underwriting assumptions, entitlement applications, consultant contracts, design coordination, construction cost reporting, and the handoff into operations. The work is heavy on coordination, documentation, and follow-through…and that is the point. Development is won or lost on whether someone is tracking the hundred open items that no one else has time to track.

We build to own. Every project this Asst. Development Manager works on will still be in our portfolio in twenty years, which changes how we make decisions and what we expect from the people who support them.

Core Responsibilities

Project controls and reporting

• Maintain the development budget: track committed, incurred, and forecast costs by cost code against the approved budget, and flag variances before they become problems
• Prepare the monthly project report for internal review and lender distribution
• Maintain the master project schedule under the direction of the Sr VP of Development; track critical path items and long-lead procurement
• Own the project decision log and open-items list, and drive items to closure between meetings
• Support monthly draw preparation in coordination with the Development Accountant and lender

Consultant and team coordination

• Coordinate the consultant team — architect, civil, structural, MEP, landscape, traffic, environmental, geotechnical — including scheduling, deliverable tracking, and invoice review against contracted scope
• Prepare and circulate agendas, meeting minutes, and action-item lists for weekly project team meetings
• Maintain the project document control system: drawing sets, consultant contracts, reports, permits, correspondence
• Track consultant contract status, scope amendments, and fee reconciliation

Entitlements and permitting

• Assemble and submit entitlement and permit applications; track review comments and resubmittals
• Serve as the primary point of contact with municipal staff on routine permitting and expediting matters
• Maintain the conditions of approval tracker — every condition attached to every approval, with its trigger, owner, deadline, and satisfaction status
• Support preparation of materials for public hearings, community meetings, and stakeholder briefings
• Track utility agreements, easements, offsite improvement obligations, and public improvement bonds

Design and construction support

• Support the design review process across schematic design, design development, and construction documents
• Coordinate and document the Design–Operations Review at each design milestone, capturing comments from property operations, asset management, and retail leasing and tracking them to resolution
• Log and track RFIs, submittals, and change orders; support the Director of Construction in change-order review and validation
• Support tenant coordination for retail and commercial buildouts
• Support closeout: as-built drawings, O&M manuals, warranties, commissioning documentation, and the operations turnover package

Investment and handoff support

• Support underwriting updates and budget reforecasts as project assumptions change
• Prepare materials for Investment Committee submissions
• Support the formal handoffs — acquisitions to development at closing, and development to asset management and property operations at delivery
• Assist with tracking delivered operating performance against development-stage projections through stabilization

Mixed-use specific

• Track obligations arising from the Reciprocal Easement Agreement and any vertical subdivision or condominium documents, including cost allocation formulas and shared systems responsibilities
• Support coordination across components — retail, residential, office, parking — where design, construction sequencing, or operations intersect

What Makes This Role Different Here

Most assistant development manager’s roles sit at merchant builders, where the job ends at certificate of occupancy and the building becomes someone else's problem. Ours doesn't.

Three practical consequences:

1. You will sit in operations meetings. The Design–Operations Review is a core part of this role's coordination work. You will be documenting why a maintenance access decision or an equipment replacement path matters, which is not typical associate-level exposure.
2. You will see the scoreboard. We track delivered operating expenses against what development underwrote, and you will help produce that comparison. Very few associates at this level ever find out whether their project's assumptions were right.
3. Documents outlive the project. The conditions of approval tracker and the REA obligations you maintain will be referenced in year fifteen by people who weren't here when the building opened. Document control is not administrative overhead in this seat; it is a core deliverable.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in real estate, finance, civil engineering, construction management, architecture, urban planning, or a related field
• 1–4 years of relevant experience — real estate development, construction management, commercial brokerage or valuation, architecture or engineering practice, municipal planning, or real estate finance
• Strong Excel skills, including the ability to work within and audit a development budget and a basic pro forma
• Demonstrated organizational discipline and follow-through on multi-party, multi-deadline work
• Clear written communication — you will write the meeting minutes, the status report, and the memo that goes to the lender
• Valid driver's license and reliable transportation for local site and agency travel

Preferred

• Experience on a mixed-use, multifamily, or ground-up commercial project
• Familiarity with entitlement and permitting processes
• Working knowledge of Procore, Yardi, MRI, Bluebeam, or comparable platforms
• Exposure to construction cost accounting, draw processes, or lender reporting
• Ability to read and interpret construction drawings and specifications

Competencies we weigh heavily

• Ownership of details. The person in this seat is the one who notices that a condition of approval has a deadline in six weeks.
• Comfort with ambiguity. Development work is non-linear and priorities shift weekly.
• Directness. We would rather hear about a problem early and imprecisely than late and well-packaged.
• Curiosity about the whole deal. The strongest candidates want to understand why the capital structure looks the way it does, not just what the budget says.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary commensurate with experience
• Annual performance bonus targeted at 10–20% of base
• Health, dental, and vision coverage; employer-funded portion to be specified
• 401(k) with company match of 100% on the first 6% of salary, immediately vested (401k starts after 6 mos. of consecutive employment)
• Paid time off and holidays (+/-11 days + 5 sick days)
• Professional development support, including industry membership(s), and coverage of relevant coursework or credential programs

IF INTERESTED IN THIS ROLE, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR RESUME TO:  View email address on click.appcast.io

Clear Springs Development Company provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics.