New Store Opening Project Manager (Contractor)

Goodwill Industries Of Greater New York•New York, NY

About The Position

Goodwill Greater New York and Northern New Jersey (GWNYNJ) believes that the power of work and sustainable fashion is how we unlock the good in our communities. For over 100 years, we have helped people get jobs, stay employed, and progress in careers across New York and Northern New Jersey. We believe that diversity drives innovation and strengthens our workplace. We are committed to fostering our inclusive environment where all employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute fully. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, identities, experiences, and abilities. We are seeking an experienced New Store Opening Project Manager to support us in our growth. This individual will bring strong retail store opening experience and apply it to current and future new store openings in the pipeline. If you have strong project and relationship management skills, have a critical eye for interdependencies and maintaining deadlines, we would love to hear from you! Role Purpose Lead end-to-end delivery of new store opening by building and executing a scalable launch framework. Develop standardized templates, playbooks, and a centralized project management board to ensure repeatable, efficient execution across locations. Integrate construction and build activities, operational readiness, staffing and training coordination, and launch marketing into a single master project plan. Conduct and lead cross-functional meetings, proactively align stakeholders, track risks, and drive accountability to keep all teams on schedule. Ultimately accountable for opening on time, within budget, fully compliant, properly staffed, operationally ready, and supported by a coordinated local marketing rollout.

Requirements

8+ years project management experience in complex projects
Proven ability to manage schedules, vendors, budgets, and cross-functional execution.
Experience coordinating local launch marketing/events (or strong partnership leadership with Marketing).
Strong written and verbal communication (clear status reporting, escalation, decision documentation).
Proficiency with common PM tools (Monday.com) and Excel/Sheets.
Demonstrated ability to deliver projects on time and within budget.
Ability to manage and align resources effectively
Strong at relationship management and holding internal and external teams accountable

Nice To Haves

5+ years in retail openings, construction project management, or multi-site operations delivery.
Strong understanding of construction timelines, permitting, and vendor coordination.
Experience creating standardized templates, playbooks, and SOPs.
Proven ability to design repeatable launch frameworks that scale across multiple market.
PMP certification.
Lean / Six Sigma, 5S background.

Responsibilities

Own the integrated master plan (build, fixtures, IT, merchandising, staffing, training, marketing).
Run project cadence (weekly cross-functional & executive), maintain logs and drive issue resolution.
Manage dependencies, critical paths, and escalation when risks threaten timeline and/or budget.
Communicate appropriately with stakeholders and internal and external resources to drive alignment and project readiness.
Work with internal and external teams to move proactively anticipate issues and facilitate solutioning that move towards set outcomes.
Create a centralized hub for all documentation, collaboration, and planning documents.
UtilizeMonday.com for Project management
Coordinate with Facilities/Real Estate and GC to track milestones, site readiness, inspections, and punch list closure.
Manage landlord constraints/approvals (deliveries, signage, access) and ensure turnover supports operations.
Coordinate with Facilities/Real Estate to ensure permitting and inspection timelines (follow-ups, inspections) and all required approvals are secured for opening (CO/temporary CO).
Coordinate testing and verification of opening critical systems (POS/network, payment processing, alarms/cameras, phones) and confirm site meets safety and operational requirements before launch.
Partner with the Asset Protection team to coordinate any security and AP considerations in applicable areas.
Work with People & Culture and Compliance team on any specific OSHA and Department of Labor requirements (Signage, Staff spaces)
Maintain project budget tracking (forecast vs committed vs actual); flag variances early. Work teams to determine critical decisions required to manage variances and resources.
Coordinate procurement timelines (fixtures, signage, IT hardware, security, supplies).
Work with Vendor Management leads to ensure required vendors are set up, approved. Work with the accounting team to handle invoicing and AP processes.
Enforce scope control and manage vendor performance.
Lead cross-functional readiness planning: store layout/flow, backroom capacity, delivery sequencing, opening week readiness.
Develop opening week runbook and hyper care support plan for the first30 days.
Proactively identify bottlenecks before they impact launch timing.
Ensure the store opens positioned to ramp quickly and achieve profitability targets by aligning readiness across staffing, training, merchandising, donation/inventory flow and launch execution.
Partner with RVP/People & Culture to manage hiring and onboarding timelines against opening milestones.
Track training completion and ensure staffing coverage for opening week
Work with Marketing to ensure on time execution of the opening marketing plan (6–8 weeks pre-open through 4 weeks post-open).
Coordinate local outreach and partnerships (community o
Partner with Finance to define launch KPIs and provide post-open performance reporting (30 days).
Facilitate handover meetings and make transition recommendations related to operations, maintenance, and other items where appropriate.
Deliver closeout package (warranties, manuals, keys/codes, service contacts, final punch closure) and post-mortem for replication.