The Advance Albany County Alliance is entering an exciting new phase focused on driving investment, creating jobs, strengthening Albany County’s tax base, and positioning the County for long-term economic growth. The Economic Development Project Manager / Deal Origination Specialist will play a central role in turning that strategy into results.
This is a high-impact, business development and deal execution position for an entrepreneurial economic development professional who can identify opportunities, build relationships, structure transactions, and move projects from concept to completion.
The position will lead the Alliance’s efforts to originate new investment opportunities and convert them into actionable projects. The successful candidate will work directly with developers, businesses, investors, site selectors, property owners, municipalities, and public-sector partners to build a robust pipeline of projects and deliver measurable economic outcomes.
The position will have particular emphasis on strategic site development, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor supply-chain opportunities, industrial development, commercial and mixed-use redevelopment, and other target sectors identified through the Alliance’s economic strategy.
This is not simply a project administration role. It is a deal-making and opportunity-creation position requiring initiative, creativity, business judgment, persistence, and the ability to bring diverse public and private interests together around viable projects.
Core Responsibilities
1. Deal Origination & Business Development
- Proactively identify, cultivate, and originate new investment and development opportunities throughout Albany County.
- Build and maintain a pipeline of prospective projects, corporate prospects, developers, investors, and strategic partners.
- Conduct targeted outreach to developers, corporations, site selectors, brokers, investors, property owners, and industry leaders.
- Develop relationships with companies and industries aligned with the Alliance’s strategic growth priorities.
- Identify emerging business and investment trends and translate them into opportunities for Albany County.
- Qualify prospects and opportunities based on investment potential, job creation, tax-base growth, site requirements, and strategic fit.
- Support business attraction, retention, and expansion efforts.
- Help position Albany County as a competitive location for investment and development.
2. Project Development & Deal Execution
- Take projects from initial concept and prospect identification through due diligence, approvals, financing, construction, and completion.
- Serve as the Alliance’s project lead and principal point of contact for assigned development opportunities.
- Coordinate financial analysis, underwriting, feasibility studies, market analysis, and due diligence.
- Evaluate project economics, financing structures, development costs, incentives, risks, and potential public benefits.
- Structure and advance transactions involving grants, tax exemptions, PILOT agreements, public financing, development agreements, and other economic development tools.
- Assist with term sheets, incentive packages, development agreements, PILOT agreements, and other transaction documents.
- Lead multidisciplinary project teams involving developers, attorneys, engineers, consultants, financial institutions, municipalities, and government agencies.
- Identify obstacles to project advancement and develop strategies to resolve them.
3. Strategic Site Development
A major component of the Alliance’s economic strategy is creating a pipeline of investment-ready development sites capable of competing for major projects.
The Project Manager will:
- Identify and advance strategic industrial, commercial, mixed-use, and redevelopment sites.
- Work with property owners, municipalities, utilities, developers, and state agencies to improve site readiness.
- Evaluate site characteristics, infrastructure, utilities, zoning, environmental conditions, transportation access, and development potential.
- Help develop strategies to make priority sites more competitive for investment.
- Support site acquisition, assemblage, infrastructure, brownfield redevelopment, and other catalytic development initiatives.
- Coordinate site marketing and prospect responses.
- Develop compelling site and project narratives for businesses, developers, and site selectors.
4. Strategic Industry Development
The Project Manager will help implement the Alliance’s targeted industry strategy, with an emphasis on sectors capable of generating significant capital investment, quality employment, and long-term tax-base growth.
Priority areas may include:
- Semiconductor and semiconductor supply-chain development
- Advanced manufacturing
- Industrial and technology-related businesses
- Logistics and distribution
- Strategic commercial development
- Mixed-use and catalytic redevelopment
- Brownfield and underutilized property redevelopment
- Other emerging industries identified through the Alliance’s economic strategy
The position will help identify prospects within these sectors, understand their location and investment requirements, and develop strategies to attract them to Albany County.
5. Public-Private Partnerships & Catalytic Projects
- Identify opportunities for public-private partnerships that can unlock significant private investment.
- Help structure catalytic projects where public resources can leverage substantially greater private investment.
- Work collaboratively with Albany County, municipalities, Empire State Development, state and federal agencies, utilities, educational institutions, and other strategic partners.
- Represent the Alliance in meetings with business executives, investors, developers, elected officials, government agencies, and community stakeholders.
- Build relationships that expand the Alliance’s ability to compete for investment and development projects.
6. Market Intelligence & Prospect Development
- Monitor national, regional, and local economic development trends.
- Track corporate expansion, relocation, site-selection, and investment activity.
- Identify companies and industries that represent potential prospects for Albany County.
- Develop targeted prospect lists and outreach strategies.
- Monitor competing regions and communities to understand Albany County’s competitive position.
- Provide the CEO and Alliance leadership with timely intelligence regarding emerging opportunities.
7. Performance & Results
The Project Manager will be expected to operate with a results-oriented mindset, with success measured by tangible economic outcomes, including:
- New investment attracted to Albany County
- New jobs created and retained
- Expansion of the County tax base
- Development of strategic sites
- New businesses attracted and existing businesses expanded
- Private investment leveraged through public resources
- Projects advanced from concept to construction and completion
- Strength and quality of the Alliance’s development pipeline
Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, real estate, economic development, urban planning, public administration, or a related field required.
Experience
- Five or more years of progressively responsible experience in economic development, commercial real estate, development, project finance, investment, business attraction, or a related transactional environment preferred.
- Demonstrated experience sourcing, structuring, negotiating, or delivering complex projects strongly preferred.
- Experience with public incentives, development transactions, public-private partnerships, or redevelopment projects desirable.
- Experience working with developers, corporate executives, investors, site selectors, or financial institutions is highly desirable.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
The successful candidate will demonstrate:
- Strong understanding of real estate development, economic development, project finance, and business investment.
- Ability to identify opportunities and turn them into viable projects.
- Strong financial analysis, underwriting, and deal-structuring capabilities.
- Excellent business development, relationship-building, and negotiation skills.
- Ability to understand complex projects and communicate them clearly to decision-makers.
- Strong project management skills and the ability to move multiple initiatives forward simultaneously.
- Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
- Ability to work effectively with both private-sector and public-sector organizations.
- Familiarity with Empire State Development programs and other state and federal economic development tools.
- Ability to navigate government processes while maintaining a strong private-sector focus.
- Strong judgment, discretion, persistence, and attention to detail.
Preferred Characteristics
The ideal candidate is:
- Entrepreneurial — sees opportunities rather than obstacles.
- Deal-oriented — enjoys putting the pieces together and getting transactions across the finish line.
- Proactive — creates opportunities rather than waiting for them to arrive.
- Strategic — understands how individual projects contribute to broader economic goals.
- Relationship-driven — builds trusted relationships with businesses, developers, investors, and public officials.
- Results-focused — measures success by investment, jobs, development, and economic impact.
- Resourceful — knows how to assemble the people, financing, incentives, and partnerships necessary to advance a project.
- Collaborative — can bring public and private stakeholders together around a common objective.
- Resilient — understands that complex development projects require persistence and creative problem-solving.
