Director, Land Development

Overview
Fleet Data Centers designs, builds and operates mega-scale data center campuses. Fleet provides its customers flexibility and predictability to meet their upside demand forecasts, addressing a key need in the market as traditional leased models are struggling to keep pace with the demand for new Cloud and AI infrastructure. Fleet is led by a team of industry veterans that have already made a lasting imprint on the evolution of global digital infrastructure and are committed and uniquely capable of upleveling data center development scale and operations in the face of rising demand. Fleet is well positioned to bring in-house design, engineering and operational capabilities to collaborate with customers on tailored solutions for campuses of 500MW+. This unique model enables Fleet to provide the world’s largest and most sophisticated customers a seamless extension of their own data center fleets with constant access to design innovation.

Position Overview

The Director of Land Development supports the pre-development phase of Fleet’s data center projects and carries those projects forward through the balance of their lifecycle. The Director of Land Development leads site diligence, campus master planning, entitlements, and permitting, from initial site control or joint venture through stabilization, then stays with the project through lease, vertical construction, stabilization, and the ultimate disposition of the asset. The Director of Land Development works closely alongside senior members of the organization, and represents Fleet before the jurisdictions, agencies, utilities, and communities that decide whether a campus gets built.

Job Responsibilities

In addition to other duties assigned, the Director of Land Development will hold the following primary responsibilities:

• Lead site inquiry and evaluation of prospective sites in assigned markets, identifying the risks and opportunities that determine whether a site advances to site control or joint venture formation, and carrying multiple projects across diverse jurisdictions at once
• Own the pre-development workstream plan for assigned projects: define the diligence scope at site control or joint venture formation, sequence the studies that gate a development decision, and hold the schedule that carries a site from control to vertical construction
• Run land and site diligence, including title and survey, geotechnical, environmental, wetlands, cultural resources, traffic, and water and wastewater, and convert the findings into buildable area, phasing, and cost consequences that leadership can act on
• Lead entitlements and permitting across local, state, and federal jurisdictions: map the approval path for each site, prepare applications alongside counsel and consultants, and carry hearings through to recorded approvals and issued permits
• Direct masterplanning with internal and external stakeholders so each campus plan reconciles critical load, building form factor, substation and switchyard siting, water strategy, and site constraints, and revise that plan as customer requirements, power availability, and investment strategy move
• Support the internal power teams on the entitlements, permits, and land use matters that power infrastructure requires, including substation and switchyard siting approvals, transmission and distribution easements and rights-of-way, conditional use approvals for generation and battery energy storage, and the property rights needed to bring interconnection and behind-the-meter solutions onto the site
• Support the creation and management of a bottom-up pre-development budget, tracking commitments and spend against it and helping forecast the capital draw by phase so leadership can plan funding
• Assemble and manage the consultant bench: write scopes of work, support solicitations, bid-leveling, recommend awards to management, negotiate agreements with internal legal, and hold each firm to its deliverable dates
• Interrogate engineering and consultant deliverables before they circulate, testing them against the approval path, the site constraints, and the development schedule, and returning work that does not hold up
• Represent Fleet before local government, including planning and zoning commissions and public works staff, and attend city council and county commission meetings as required
• Work the rest of the local apparatus that moves an approval, including assessors, clerks, utilities, and state and local economic development offices, and build the relationships that drive approvals
• Support leasing and capital markets on assigned sites, translating site and schedule reality into delivery dates and costs that can be committed to customers, lenders, and investment partners
• Advance the horizontal development features that makes a campus buildable, including securing water, wastewater, fiber, and road infrastructure and coordinating earthworks packages specific to data center campus use
• Represent Fleet in the community, building and maintaining relationships with adjacent landowners and community groups, and reflecting the company's approach to land stewardship and local economic benefit in every public interaction
• Uphold company Environment, Health & Safety standards across consultant and contractor activity on assigned sites
• Hand projects to construction without losing the record, transferring permit conditions, commitments made to jurisdictions and utilities, and design assumptions, then stay with assigned projects through vertical construction, stabilization, and disposition
• Contribute to scalable tools and processes that improve project delivery and communication, from schedule and budget standards to trackers and reporting templates, so each new site starts from the last one's lessons

Education & Experience

• Education/Accreditations: Bachelor's degree in engineering, real estate development, architecture, planning, or an equivalent discipline. Current or past Professional Engineer licensure greatly preferred.

  Experience: Minimum of five years' experience in large-scale land development, civil engineering, site planning, construction, or data center and energy development, including direct ownership of at least one entitlement path from application through approval. Civil engineering experience greatly preferred. Candidates who have taken a greenfield site through to a construction start will stand out.

  Travel: 50%. This position requires regular travel to project sites, jurisdictional hearings, utility and consultant meetings, and Fleet offices, with meaningful time in the field during active entitlement periods.

Core Skills & Competencies

• Working knowledge of real estate development fundamentals, including ownership and site control structures, land use frameworks, rezoning mechanics, and the entitlement processes that apply to large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects
• Practical command of the diligence stack, including what each study can and cannot resolve and how long each one takes in a given jurisdiction
• Ability to read a civil site plan and a utility one-line and press the engineer who drew it, sufficient to test buildable area, phasing, and infrastructure assumptions rather than accept them
• Working knowledge of power and energy infrastructure as it relates to data center development — including utility interconnection, behind-the-meter power solutions, and battery energy storage systems — sufficient to track queue position, study milestones, and energization dates against the campus schedule
• Command of pre-development budgeting and capital forecasting, with enough modeling literacy to see how a schedule slip or a scope change lands in project returns
• Demonstrated negotiating experience with consultants, contractors, utilities, and public agencies, covering scope, fee structure, and the commitments made to secure an approval
• Ability to carry several sites in different jurisdictions at once without dropping conditions, deadlines, or commitments, and to reprioritize as sites advance or stall
• Judgment to escalate, surfacing a schedule or cost problem while it can still be fixed — without waiting to be directed
• Direct writing, covering internal reports and dashboards as well as external land use applications, producing packages a senior audience can act on without a walkthrough
• Strong verbal communication, including internal presentations and public speaking at local government meetings
• Ability to manage projects and teams to a predictable conclusion, and to problem solve by leveraging independent analysis, local relationships, corporate resources, and executive support
• Curiosity and the ability to network in structured and unstructured settings, surfacing opportunities and challenges early
• Fluency in Excel for budgets and schedules and PowerPoint for leadership reporting, with comfort in drawing markup and project tracking tools

Location: New York, NY, Morristown, NJ, or remote

Travel Requirement: 50% This position requires regular travel to project sites, jurisdictional hearings, utility and consultant meetings, and Tract Capital offices, with meaningful time in the field during active entitlement periods.

Expected Salary Range: $180,000 - $195,000 Base Salary + Discretionary Bonus

Fleet Data Centers Employment
Fleet Data Centers employees enjoy competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including 100% employer-covered medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401K program, standard paid holidays, and unlimited PTO.

NOTE: This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive. Employees may perform other related duties to meet the organization's ongoing needs.

Fleet Data Centers is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants are considered for employment regardless of age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or veteran status. If you need assistance applying for any of our open positions, please contact us at [email protected].