Director of Design and Construction

POSITION SUMMARY The Director of Design & Construction provides strategic and hands-on leadership for the design, construction, and close-out of Fitch Irick’s affordable housing development pipeline. Reporting to the Chief Development Officer, this role serves as the senior owner’s representative through design and construction, and is accountable for delivering projects on time, on budget, and in full compliance with funding, regulatory, and quality standards.

This is a build-the-function role, not a maintain-the-function role. Fitch Irick is currently starting 800–1,000 units per year and scaling toward 2,500 units annually. The Director will design the systems, standards, and team required to absorb that growth — recruiting and mentoring their own project management bench rather than inheriting one.

The pipeline is presently weighted toward new construction — garden-style walk-up, mid-rise and wrap product, and senior housing — with acquisition and rehabilitation representing a growing share of future activity. Fluency across both new development and occupied rehabilitation is increasingly important to this role.

We are seeking a licensed architect for this position. The ideal candidate brings a designer’s judgment to owner-side execution: someone who can sit across the table from an architect of record as a peer, drive design quality and constructability upstream where it is cheapest to influence, and — over time — build an internal design capability within the company.

THE OPPORTUNITY:

BUILDING IN-HOUSE DESIGN CAPABILITY Fitch Irick is a vertically integrated affordable housing platform. Design is the function we intend to bring in-house, and this role leads that effort.

We are explicit about this ambition because it should shape who applies. The immediate mandate is to establish disciplined design and construction management at scale — the standards, controls, and team that make a growing pipeline predictable. As that foundation holds, this leader will be positioned to develop the business case for, and then lead, an in-house architectural division: defining its scope, staffing model, licensure footprint, and role in the development process.

Sequencing matters. We are not asking one person to do all of this at once, and we are not looking for someone who wants to skip the first phase. We are looking for a leader who executes the near-term work exceptionally well and has the ambition and capability to build what comes next.

Prior experience founding, leading, or scaling an architectural studio or in-house design group is a meaningful differentiator.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Portfolio & Strategic Leadership Provide overall leadership for the design and construction phases of the development portfolio

Establish and maintain design, construction, and project management standards across all projects

Build the scalable systems, templates, and controls required to grow from ~1,000 to 2,500 units delivered annually

Contribute to project feasibility analysis, schedules, and budgets during early development

Identify risks and develop mitigation strategies related to cost, schedule, constructability, and delivery

Advise the Chief Development Officer on pipeline capacity, staffing needs, and consultant selection

Evaluate contracting approaches and recommend the appropriate delivery method by project type Design Leadership Direct and oversee architects, engineers, and consultants through all design phases

Develop and own a prototype and product standards program spanning garden-style and podium/wrap construction types to reduce design cycle time and cost across a repeatable pipeline

Ensure senior housing designs address accessibility, aging-in-place, and resident-services requirements beyond code minimums

Ensure…