Project Development Manager Jobs in Fayetteville, NC

Salary: $77,122.00 - $98,331.00 Annually
Location : 433 Hay Street, Fayetteville, NC 28301, NC
Job Type: Regular Full-Time
Job Number: 04538
Department: City Manager's Office
Opening Date: 08/23/2026
Closing Date: 9/4/2026 11:59 PM Eastern
Description
Click here to meet some of the City's "CAN DO" employees.
Hiring Range: $77,122 - $98,331/Year D.O.Q.
INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE PROCESSED.
A RESUME WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED IN DETERMINING YOUR QUALIFICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION.
The City of Fayetteville is currently recruiting for a Downtown & Urban Development Manager to serve as the City's chief steward of Downtown Fayetteville and provides visionary leadership to advance the downtown as the community's economic, cultural, civic, entertainment, and tourism center. The position is responsible for fostering economic vitality, encouraging redevelopment and private investment, enhancing placemaking, strengthening public-private partnerships, preserving the community's historic assets, and ensuring exceptional stewardship of the downtown experience and public realm.
Serving as the City's lead professional for downtown revitalization, the Downtown & Urban Development Manager plans, directs, implements, coordinates, and evaluates comprehensive strategies and initiatives that promote business recruitment and retention, redevelopment, destination development, place management, historic preservation, placemaking, and quality-of-life improvements. The position leads the City's day-to-day downtown management function by proactively identifying, prioritizing, and coordinating the resolution of issues affecting the public realm, including cleanliness, litter, graffiti, landscaping, sidewalks, streetscapes, lighting, parking, accessibility, signage, wayfinding, code compliance, beautification, and other quality-of-life concerns. Working collaboratively across multiple City departments-including Public Services, Engineering, Traffic Services, Police, Fire, Community Safety, Transit, Parking, Parks and Recreation, Code Enforcement, and other City departments-as well as elected officials, partner organizations, businesses, property owners, developers, and community stakeholders, the position ensures Downtown Fayetteville remains clean, safe, welcoming, economically competitive, and attractive for residents, visitors, businesses, and investors.
The Downtown & Urban Development Manager serves as the City's principal advisor on downtown revitalization strategies, redevelopment opportunities, economic development initiatives, placemaking, urban design, and downtown policy. The position exercises considerable independent judgment, initiative, and professional discretion while developing innovative solutions, building consensus among diverse stakeholders, facilitating public-private partnerships, and coordinating complex, cross-departmental initiatives that advance the City's strategic priorities.
Success in this position is measured through demonstrable improvements in private investment, redevelopment activity, business recruitment and retention, commercial occupancy, downtown housing, public realm quality, cleanliness, safety, visitor experience, activation of public spaces, stakeholder satisfaction, and the overall vitality, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability of Downtown Fayetteville.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Coordinate activity of downtown by facilitating engagement and activity between the City and downtown entities, ensuring that communication between stakeholders is well established.
2. Serve as the City's primary coordinator for downtown revitalization, redevelopment, placemaking, and economic competitiveness.
3. Develop and implement long-range strategic initiatives that increase downtown investment, business activity, residential development, tourism, and economic vitality.
4. Recruit, retain, and assist restaurants, retailers, office users, entertainment venues, hospitality businesses, and other commercial enterprises.
5. Manage all administrative aspects of the downtown program, including purchasing, record-keeping, budget development and accounting, preparing all reports required for approved grants, assisting with the preparation of reports to funding agencies and supervising part-time employees or consultants.
6. Identify redevelopment opportunities and work proactively with developers, investors, brokers, property owners, and City departments to facilitate public and private investment.
7. Coordinate implementation of downtown capital improvement projects including streetscapes, public spaces, lighting, gateways, public art, pedestrian amenities, parking improvements, and beautification projects.
8. Develop and/or support strategies for downtown economic development while maintaining historic preservation. Become familiar with all persons and groups directly or indirectly involved in the downtown commercial district being mindful of the roles of various downtown interest groups.
9. Develop and maintain productive working relationships with downtown property owners, business owners, developers, neighborhood organizations, educational institutions, Fort Bragg, regional partners, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations.
10. Coordinate closely with Cool Spring Downtown District, Downtown Alliance, Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau, Arts Council, Fayetteville Public Works Commission, Cumberland County, NCDOT, and other strategic partners.
11. Coordinate with Police, Fire, the Office of Community Safety, homeless outreach providers, behavioral health organizations, and community partners to improve both actual and perceived public safety while supporting coordinated, compassionate responses to quality-of-life issues affecting downtown.
12. Represent the City before elected officials, advisory boards, business organizations, neighborhood groups, developers, investors, state agencies, media representatives, and the public.
13. Develop and implement marketing, branding, and destination development initiatives that strengthen Downtown Fayetteville's identity and regional competitiveness.
14. Pursue, prepare, administer, and manage local, state, federal, and private grant opportunities that advance downtown revitalization objectives.
15. Develop and maintain data systems to track the process and progress of the downtown program. These systems should include economic monitoring, individual building files, and information on growth, activity, job creation, and business retention.
16. Constantly review the physical appearance of the downtown infrastructure (streets, lights, sidewalks, parking lots, etc.) and coordinate with existing City departments to ensure that a high level of maintenance is adhered to at all times.

For a complete job description, click here.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Any combination of experience and training that would likely provide the required knowledge and abilities is qualifying. A typical way to obtain the knowledge and abilities would be:
Experience:
Five years of progressively responsible professional experience in downtown management, economic development, redevelopment, planning, public administration, commercial real estate, community development, Main Street management, business improvement district management, or closely related fields, including experience leading complex projects and working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders.
Preferred:
Experience working within a municipal government or public-private partnership environment.
Training:
Equivalent to a Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in Public Administration, Urban Planning, Community Development, Business Administration, Economic Development, Architecture, Historic Preservation, Real Estate, or a closely related field; A Master's degree is preferred.
LICENSING & CERTIFICATIONS:
Required:
None.
Preferred:
Certified Economic Developer (CEcD), American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), Project Management Professional (PMP), National Main Street Credential or equivalent downtown management certification or International Downtown Association professional credentials.

• SBI/Fingerprinting Criminal History Record Check Requirement: To comply with Sessions Law 2025-16, applicants offered a position with the City may be subject to a criminal history record check of State and National Repositories of Criminal Histories conducted by the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) in accordance with The City may consider the results of these criminal history record checks in its hiring decisions.

From the time of closing, the selection process is anticipated to last approximately 4 - 6 weeks. The process will consist of a panel interview with the selected candidate being subject to a pre-employment drug screen, background check, and driving history check.
An Equal Opportunity Employer
Health and Dental Insurance:
The City of Fayetteville Employee Healthcare Benefit Plan provides comprehensive and affordable health and dental coverage while maintaining reasonable costs to employees. Coverage is available for all regular status employees scheduled to work 30 hours or more per week. Employees may also choose to cover eligible dependents. The premium is deducted on a pre-tax basis, with the City paying a portion of the premium. Qualifying employees are eligible for benefits on the 1st day of the month following 30 days of service.
Employer Paid Leave
Vacation Leave:
Regular employees begin accruing vacation leave the first day of employment. Accruals are based on years of service
and the number of hours an employee is scheduled to work.
Sick Leave:
Regular employees begin accruing sick leave the first day of employment. Accruals are based on the number of hours
scheduled to work; regular full-time employees accrue eight (8) hours per month. Sick leave hours accumulate without
limits and may be used toward creditable service upon retirement from the NC Local Governmental Retirement System.
Holidays:
The City of Fayetteville observes 12 paid holidays per calendar year. When Christmas day is on a Wednesday, an
additional holiday is provided making for 13 paid holidays.
Bereavement:
Regular employees are eligible for bereavement leave. The City will authorize 24 hours per calendar year to mourn or
attend a funeral or memorial service of a family member.
Retirement:
The City of Fayetteville assists employees in securing their financial future during retirement by participating in the NC
Local Governmental Employees' Retirement System, administered by the State of North Carolina. Regular employees
scheduled to work 20 hours or more per week become members in the retirement system upon employment. As a member
of this system, employees are required to contribute 6% of their gross salary on a tax-deferred basis.
Deferred Compensation Plans:
To further assist employees in saving for retirement, the City offers two supplemental retirement savings programs. These
programs enable regular full-time, and part-time employees working at least 20 hours per week, an opportunity to save a
portion of their salary on a tax-deferred basis to supplement their retirement benefits. These programs are the NC 401(k)
plan and NC 457 plan; both administered by Empower. The City currently contributes 4% of base salary to an eligible
employee's NC 401(k) account.
Cafeteria Plan / Supplemental Benefits:
Realizing that each employee may have different insurance needs, the City offers its employees the opportunity to supplement City-provided benefits by selecting from the benefits listed below. These benefits are offered at employee's expense through payroll deduction:
-> Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) - Healthcare and Dependent Care Reimbursement Accounts (pre-tax)
-> Short-Term and Long-Term Disability Insurance
-> Optional Life & Accidental Death & Dismemberment
Death Benefit:
The first year an employee contributes to the retirement system, the City provides a death benefit of $3,000 once the
employee is benefits eligible. After one year as a contributing member of the Retirement System, a death benefit is provided
by the NC Retirement System that is equal to the highest 12 months' salary in a row during the 24 months before death, no
less than $25,000 and no more than $50,000. There is no cost to the employee for this benefit.
Pay Periods / Deduction for Benefits / Direct Deposit:
City employees are paid bi-weekly (every other Friday). Benefit deductions are taken for 24 pay periods of the year. As an added convenience and safety measure, the City requires all new employees to sign up for direct deposit.
Employee Assistance Program:
The EAP is available at no cost to all employees and their household members. The EAP provides confidential guidance
on legal, financial and personal issues affecting your health, relationships and job.
01
Responses to the supplemental questions must reflect the information provided under the "Work Experience" section of the application. Your responses will be used to determine whether or not you possess the minimum qualifications required for this position at the time of application.

• I have read and complied with the above statement.

02
Are you a current City of Fayetteville employee?

• Yes
• No

03
Have you held an out-of-state driver's license (other than NC) in the past 3 years?

• Yes
• No

04
Please indicate the highest degree you currently possess.

• Master's Degree or higher
• Bachelor's Degree
• Associate's Degree
• None of the Above

05
From the list below, please indicate the major coursework of your highest degree.

• Architecture
• Business Administration
• C