Job Description:
- Job Title: AVP, Development Finance
- Company: Lifestyle Development Services
- Department: Finance & Accounting
- Reports To: CFO
- Wage Category: Exempt
Who We Are At Lifestyle Communities (LC), we take deliberate action every day to nurture a culture grounded in our purpose - to Build a Connection™. Whether you’re behind the bar, in the kitchen, or on the floor, your work helps create spaces where people come together, connect, and belong. We are guided by our core values - Performance, Quality, Communication, Teamwork, and Leadership - and fueled by our commitment to excellence. At LC, you’ll find your “why,” your place to belong, and the opportunity to make a lasting impact.
The Team You Will Join
We count on accounting and finance to deliver far more than just the numbers. Lifestyle Communities’ (LC) Finance team helps us realize our goals and achieve our ambitions by identifying and capitalizing on opportunities to drive value. You’ll join the Business Finance team, which partners with each LC business to plan, forecast and protect returns. Development Finance sits at the center of LC’s growth: a pipeline of large, multi-phase multifamily communities.
Who You Are
As the AVP, Development Finance, you are the owner’s financial voice on every LC Development Services project, from pursuit through stabilization. You bring developer discipline: you have worked where returns and promote depended on delivering on budget, on schedule and on rent, and you know how to spot a project drifting from its proforma before it shows up in a draw or an investor report.
You will own the monthly performance view of each project - estimated cost to complete, delivery schedule, asking versus achieved rents, and the path to stabilization - and translate it into its impact on return on cost, IRR and promote. You will partner closely with development, construction, accounting, capital markets and asset management, and provide management a clear, concise view of where each project stands and what should be done about it. In addition to monitoring active projects, you will independently assess and challenge the Development team’s underwriting of new land and multifamily pursuits, build the financial plan for the pipeline, and develop a development finance team that uses modern tools, including automation and AI, to spend less time producing reports and more time influencing decisions.
The Difference You Will Make
Project Performance and Returns
- Owns the monthly owner-side forecast for every active development project and phase, reconciled to the approved proforma, budget and construction loan.
- Establishes and monitors the KPIs for each project: estimated cost to complete, delivery schedule, asking versus achieved rents, and path to stabilization.
- Quantifies variances in terms of return on cost, untrended and trended yield, levered and unlevered IRR, equity multiple and promote, and brings a recommended course of action to leadership.
- Maintains phased development proformas, sensitivity analyses and investor return (waterfall) models for each project.
Budget, Cost to Complete and Draws
- Leads monthly budget-to-actual and cost-to-complete reviews with development and construction; challenges change orders, contingency usage and buyout results against the proforma.
- Builds an independent owner’s estimate of cost to complete rather than relying solely on contractor reporting.
- Oversees job costing and pre-development, development and construction-management billings through the Project Accounting Manager.
- Coordinates draw packages with Construction Finance and Accounting so that lender, investor and internal figures reconcile, and monitors loan covenants, interest reserves and equity requirements.
Schedule, Phasing and Lease-Up
- Tracks critical milestones across multi-phase communities, from entitlement and closing through vertical start, first delivery and completion.
- Models the financial impact of schedule slips, phase sequencing and interest carry, and recommends mitigation.
- Monitors weekly leasing velocity, concessions and achieved rents against underwriting for each lease-up.
- Forecasts stabilization date, stabilized NOI and value; recommends pricing, concession or timing changes with Asset Management and property operations.
Pipeline, Capital and Reporting
- Assesses and stress-tests underwriting prepared by the Development team for new pursuits and future phases, challenging key assumptions (rents, costs, cap rates, absorption, schedule) against market data and LC’s actual project results. The Development team prepares the underwriting; this role provides Finance’s independent review.
- Builds the start schedule, equity and debt requirements, and development fee forecast for the annual company budget and pipeline planning for ownership.
- Provides Finance’s independent view on deals and phases presented to investment committee, and prepares project packages for lenders, joint-venture partners and investors; supports Capital Markets & IR on construction loans, equity and fund reporting.
- Produces a monthly development dashboard for the management team and standardizes reporting formats across projects.
Leadership and Controls
- Establishes templates, approval thresholds and a review cadence that provide an independent check on project spend.
- Leads, coaches and develops team members
- Establishes goals and provides fair and consistent feedback to direct reports regarding performance and career development.
- Drives process improvement and adoption of technology, automation and AI tools to improve speed and accuracy of reporting.
- Completes other projects as directed and assigned by the Executive Team.
What You’ll Bring
- Demonstrated owner-side experience monitoring ground-up development projects against proforma, budget, schedule and return targets.
- Experience with large-scale, multi-phase multifamily or mixed-use developments through construction, lease-up and stabilization.
- Experience at a merchant developer, fund sponsor or institutional owner where returns and promote depended on execution.
- Expert financial modeling skills: development proformas, phased cash flows, sensitivity analysis, and debt and equity waterfalls (NPV, IRR, DCF).
- Working knowledge of construction lending, draw processes, loan covenants and joint-venture agreements.
- Ability to read a contractor cost report and form an independent view of cost to complete.
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication, with the ability to present to a CEO, investment committee, lenders and investors.
- Strong leadership qualities and experience managing, motivating, developing and coaching team members.
- Advanced skills in Microsoft Office and Excel; experience with job-cost or development software and Spreadsheet Server preferred.
Direct Reports and Reporting Relationship Reports to the Vice President, FP&A (to the Chief Financial Officer until that role is filled). Directly manages the Project Accounting Manager, with responsibility to build out a Columbus-based development finance team. The ability to achieve results by working with others within the organization, regardless of the reporting relationship, is a critical success factor.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, real estate or related field.
- Seven (7) to ten (10) years of real estate development finance, development or investment experience.
- Minimum of four (4) years in an owner or developer-side role on ground-up multifamily development.
- Minimum of three (3) years of management or team leadership experience preferred.
- MBA, CPA or CFA preferred but not required.
- Experience supporting a program with high-volume of starts per year or multiple concurrent starts preferred.
Physical Demands and Work Environment The physical demands and work environment described herein are representative of the criteria that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made for individuals with disabilities to perform these functions in accordance with applicable law.
Physical Demands: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to primarily sit; stand; walk; handle or feel objects, reach with hands and arms; talk and hear. Occasional climbing, balancing, stooping, crouching, and crawling; specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, and the ability to focus.
Work Environment: While performing the duties of this job, the employee is exposed to an office environment with regular exposure to project sites.
Location and Travel: Position will be based in Columbus, Ohio (on-site) with periodic travel to project sites in local and out of state markets including but not limited to Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Denver, and Florida.
Disclaimer The above information in this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.
Lifestyle Communities (LC) is an Equal Opportunity Employer.