Director, Site Acquisition

Cypress Creek Renewables•Chicago, IL

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

Cypress Creek Energy (CCE) is seeking a motivated candidate for a Director level role to lead our Site Acquisition Team position as an integral part of our Project Sourcing team. The Site Acquisition Director will be at the core of Cypress Creek’s project pipeline growth and business development strategy and will be primarily responsible for new project formation work including screening regions and prospective sites for strategic fit and execution probability, developing and managing land campaigns, managing subcontractors for infrastructure, land and other support capabilities, crafting strategic partnerships with large land partners, and negotiating real estate contracts. The intent of this role is to lead our Site Acquisition team to manage our site due diligence and project formation work across the United States, serving as the primary coordinator between our development teams working in specific markets, our internal subject matter expert teams including the GIS team, and our external land partners to successfully acquire land to support transmission scale energy projects and large loads such as data centers. The position offers a unique opportunity to join a well-funded and rapidly growing energy company at the forefront of our development business, driving the expansion of our project pipeline in support of our medium and long-term growth strategy. An effective candidate will demonstrate excellent organizational habits, comprehensive communication skills, a desire to solve complex problems, enthusiastic initiative, negotiation acumen, team management capabilities, and an excellent ability to work with others across multiple teams in the company.

Requirements

6+ years working experience in land acquisition or real estate development work, with preference for experience in energy and/or industrial related land acquisition
BA degree preferred, with focus on real estate, energy, or business a plus
Ability to travel approximately 10-25% of the time
Team supervision experience
Strong work ethic and ability to self-start in a fast-paced environment
Results driven and solutions oriented
Strong organization, communication skills and attention to detail
Excellent negotiation, and influencing skills
A self-starter with ability to work under limited supervision that seeks help when needed
Embrace and live by the mission and values of Cypress Creek Energy

Responsibilities

Working with Project Sourcing and CCE partner teams to shape and execute project and pipeline formation and structuring strategies
Familiarity with early and late stage development requirements for powered land for large loads, as well as solar+battery projects. Experience with natural gas-fired generation and gas infrastructure requirements is preferred.
Coordinating with Development and Geo-analytics GIS teams to identify prospective sites
Coordinating with subject matter expert teams, including our revenue, interconnection, and modeling teams, to determine site suitability
Lead Site Acquisition team in day to day activities
Performing desktop diligence on prospective sites to determine site suitability for greenfield development
Manage land acquisition vendors, varying from singular landman to corporate land acquisition companies, and consider suite of options for each potential campaign
Understanding value proposition of target sites to inform and prioritize negotiations
Negotiating ground lease and purchase agreements
Negotiating terms and conditions for collection and transmission lines, access roads and right of way easements
Managing data sets and customer relationship management platform to track leads
Vetting and onboarding new land acquisition vendors