Construction project management, by the person on site.
Schedule, budget, permits, trades and decisions for a custom home or a renovation on the Santa Barbara South Coast. One person runs all of it, and writes to you every Friday.
What does a construction project manager do on a house?
A construction project manager keeps a building project on its schedule and its budget. On a house that means carrying the permit application, sequencing the trades, ordering long-lead items, calling inspections, pricing every change before the work happens, and telling the owner where things stand. At AMN the project manager is Matt Newman, the principal. He takes three projects at a time, and sends a written update with photographs every Friday.
License record: CSLB 802739 (opens in a new tab)
One manager. Three projects at a time.
Larger builders put a project manager between the owner and the site, and that manager carries several jobs. AMN stayed small so that would not happen. Matt carries every project himself: three at a time, occasionally four, never five.
When something is behind a wall that nobody drew, you hear it from him the same day, with the cost and the options, before more work happens.
Six things, all in writing.
A live schedule with agency dates
Board hearings, plan check and inspections sit on the same schedule as the trades, so a late approval is visible the week it happens.
Three numbers, named differently
An order of cost, then a line-item preliminary budget, then a fixed contract sum at preconstruction. After that it moves only by a written change you approve in advance. The paperwork.
The application, tracked
We submit, route plan check comments to your architect and engineer, and answer the construction side in writing. Who permits what, town by town.
The same crews, job after job
Trades bid the permitted set and are sequenced so each one starts in a finished space. The trades.
An allowance schedule with deadlines
Every selection has a date, because two weeks lost choosing tile becomes a month lost on site.
Every Friday, in writing
Where we are, the schedule, any cost movement, the decisions needed from you, and photographs. See a specimen update.
The price narrows. Then it stops.
Move one board date. Watch what else moves.
A specimen renovation, submitted in the first week of January. Pick the town, then let design review run late. This is the arithmetic a project manager does every week.
Review runs to plan. Move-in: Mar 2028.
Drag to any week, or play the job from the first submission to move-in.
Review and permitsConstruction, to planConstruction, movedRainy season, Nov 1 to Apr 15
Entitlement on this coast takes six weeks to nine months, depending on the town and the parcel. Nothing after it can start until it ends.
Part of every project AMN builds. It is not a separate department, and the manager is the principal.
AMN holds the construction contract and builds the house for a fixed contract sum. General contracting
Another firm builds, and you want the project managed from your side of the table. Owner’s rep
Cabinetry, trim, doors and built-ins from our shop in Carpinteria, on our projects or on their own. Finish carpentry
What managing a project means in each town.
On this coast the schedule is set as much by the review path as by the trades. The path changes at every town line.
Montecito
Montecito projects go through Santa Barbara County and the Montecito Board of Architectural Review, in three stages, with the Montecito Fire Protection District checking access and water supply. The schedule is built around those dates first. We built the Loureyro Property here from the ground up, 2019 to 2023, through both.
General contractor in Montecito: the full review path
Santa Barbara
In the City of Santa Barbara most houses go to the Single Family Design Board, and historic districts to the Historic Landmarks Commission. Our Mission, San Roque and Westside remodels were managed here: older houses, where opening walls on purpose before the price is fixed keeps the schedule honest.
General contractor in Santa Barbara: the full review path
Hope Ranch
Hope Ranch runs on two calendars: the County’s and the Hope Ranch Park Homes Association’s conceptual, preliminary and final reviews. They interleave, and the Association’s own permit comes last. Managing a project here means keeping both in one schedule.
General contractor in Hope Ranch: the full review path
Summerland
In Summerland most projects need a Coastal Development Permit on top of County design review, and the lots are narrow and steep. Access, staging and deliveries are planned before the trades are scheduled, because they limit how many crews can work at once.
General contractor in Summerland: the full review path
Carpinteria
Every parcel in Carpinteria is in the Coastal Zone, so the Coastal Development Permit sits on the schedule from the first week. Our shop is here, and our junior unit conversion in Carpinteria was managed from it.
General contractor in Carpinteria: the full review path
Review bodies checked against official sources, November 2026, in Who permits your house, town by town. Boards and maps change, and parcels differ.
Project management: what owners ask.
Is project management a separate fee at AMN?
Can I hire AMN for project management only?
Who is my project manager?
How often will I hear from you?
How do you keep the budget from moving?
How many projects do you run at once?
Matt Newman, principal. Licensed since 2001. Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, twenty years on this coast, and on every AMN site himself. His story
Send the address. We’ll tell you how long it takes and who decides.
Email it to purchasing@amnbuild.com. Matt reads it himself and replies in writing within two business days.
CSLB 802739 · Class B General Building · Licensed and insured
Updated November 2026