Developers and Master Planned Communities

Your infrastructure and your risk, owned by one accountable partner.

A master-planned community or mixed-use development lives or dies on the parts nobody sees on the rendering; the grading and drainage, the utilities and water, the entitlements, the schedule, and the dozens of consultants who each hold one piece of it. I’m an owner’s representative and civil engineer who takes ownership of that layer on your behalf, protects your pro forma from it, and gives you a single person accountable for the whole thing.

What I do for your development

De-risk the project before it costs you. I’ve spent fourteen years on both sides of construction risk; building $100M–$800M heavy-civil projects, and later serving as a claims consultant and expert witness when they went wrong. I bring that to your development as prevention. I find the problems while they’re still inexpensive to fix, before they’ve hit the schedule and the return.

Own the horizontal infrastructure. Grading, drainage, stormwater and SWMPs, utilities, roads, water and wastewater strategy are the backbone that determines whether the vertical ever pencils. This is core civil engineering, exactly what my licensure and heavy-civil background prepared me for.

Navigate entitlements and agencies. Jurisdictions, permitting, and public entities each have their own logic and their own timeline. I’ve delivered work for public owners from Caltrain to the US Army Corps of Engineers and worked with reviewing authorities across the spectrum. I know how to keep the approvals process off the critical path.

Lead at the program level. A phased, multi-structure development is a program: many projects, many teams, moving at once. I provide the master planning, budgeting, and cross-team leadership to keep many moving parts pointed at the same commitments. When needed, I augment your internal staff as an extension of your team.

Be the single point of accountability. Designers, engineers, contractors, inspectors are an ensemble that requires a conductor to set the tempo and answer for the result. One conductor, one score, no note gets missed.

Protect capital efficiency. Every recommendation I make is framed against return. I’m not here to gold-plate your project; I’m here to make sure every dollar you commit is a dollar well-spent.

For special districts and authorities

Colorado’s master-planned communities are built through special districts and authorities that finance public infrastructure under Title 32 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, districts formed to fund roads, water, and utilities through municipal bonds, repaid over time by mill levies assessed against the homes within them. These districts rely on sound engineering at every step, from formation and service plans through construction and bond reimbursement.

They require nuanced and efficient cost management for them to pencil for their investors. This boils down to several key functions that a competent District Engineer, Owner’s Rep, and Program Manager can bring to the development:

•   Cost segregation - what can be funded by municipal bonds, and what must be funded by private investor funding.

•   Efficient management of design consultants - landscape architects, stormwater drainage plans, roadway plans, and lighting plans all need to be developed before construction begins. Phasing and segmenting these plans can give developers flexibility to make good fiduciary decisions, often in reaction to dynamic markets.

•   Effective planning and project phasing - a plan for engineering and construction must be developed to support which units reach market first, and balanced against requirements that funds raised via muni bonds are deployed before regulatory deadlines.

•   Project advocacy - a competent District Engineer who presents well to jurisdictional authorities, and creates a partnership with them, is essential to the success of the development.

I know this work firsthand. I’ve worked for Colorado metropolitan districts, including the Velocity Metro District and the HM Metro Districts, inside the district-engineering function on master-planned communities such as Painted Prairie and Windler. I’m well versed in what the role requires: RFPs and consultant selection, contracts and design management, submittal and pay-application review, RFI resolution, construction, inspection, and survey oversight, and cost-segregation for the district authorities. I understand both the engineering these districts depend on and the Title 32 framework that funds it.

If your district or authority needs a district engineer, or an engineer to advise its board, that is work I am built for.

Proof — a track record in heavy civil and complex delivery

•   25th Avenue Grade Separation & Hillsborough Station - San Mateo, CA · $110M. Managed construction of a new grade-separated Caltrain station and track reconstruction anchoring the 88-acre Bay Meadows transit-oriented development. Negotiated global settlements resolving design deficiencies, utility conflicts, and pandemic impacts.

•   Selmon West Extension - Tampa, FL · $233M. Led an interchange team on a 2.5-mile expressway, including precast segmental bridge construction and complex maintenance of traffic, for the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority.

•   Herbert Hoover Dike Rehabilitation - Okeechobee, FL · $16M. Managed rehabilitation for the US Army Corps of Engineers, including mass excavation and a gated culvert controlling flow between the Kissimmee River and canal systems.

•   Wheatstone LNG Export Terminal - Western Australia · $800M+ (within a $40B program). Oversaw structural and mechanical contracts on a greenfield LNG facility for Bechtel and Chevron.

•   Orlando Airport South Terminal / Brightline rail - Orlando, FL · $30M+.

•   Cloudbreak Mine Enhancement Project - Western Australia · $200M.

•   Murrin Murrin Mine Repowering - Western Australia · $10M.

I’ve delivered the hard, high-consequence infrastructure that developments depend on. Now I keep projects from ending up in the disputes I was once hired to resolve.

Let’s talk about your project.

Whether you’re at concept, entitlements, or ready to break ground, a first conversation costs nothing and will tell you quickly whether I’m the right partner.

Contact Lucas →