Building an ADU in San Diego is more than a construction project—it is a coordinated process involving city approvals, utility requirements, inspections, and multiple trades working in the right sequence.
When those pieces are not managed carefully, delays can happen quickly. A permit issue, utility requirement, inspection setback, or scheduling conflict can leave a project stalled while everyone waits for the next step.
The HiLite Group manages your ADU project from permit through power-on. We coordinate the moving parts, keep the timeline organized, communicate with the trades, and help ensure each phase happens when it should.
The subcontractors are yours. You can choose from our vetted San Diego network or bring your own licensed professionals. They contract directly with you and bill you at their actual cost. We charge one flat project management fee, with no markup on subcontractor labor or materials.
Our goal is simple: give you the experience and oversight needed to navigate the complexity of an ADU build while keeping costs transparent and communication clear from start to finish.
Consider what can happen without experienced project oversight:
The HiLite Group brings decades of construction experience to every ADU project. The contractor license behind the business has been held by Geno Guerra, a California licensed contractor since 1979, and Jackie Guerra, who manages the day-to-day operations and client experience on every project.
Our role is simple: keep the process organized, keep communication clear, and help homeowners move from concept to completed ADU with confidence.
An ADU project manager coordinates the build on the homeowner’s behalf without acting as the contracting party. The homeowner hires and pays each subcontractor directly (drawing from the project manager’s vetted network or bringing on trades of their own choosing). The project manager handles scheduling, approvals, and utility coordination from permit through final sign-off. The fee is flat, not a percentage markup, which keeps every line item visible.
The HiLite Group has been operating in San Diego since 2001. Geno has held his California contractor’s license since 1979, and that experience guides the structural, regulatory, and construction decisions made throughout your project.
More than four decades of hands-on residential construction experience in San Diego means that complex situations are met with knowledge gained from years in the field—not guesswork.
Jackie is the person managing the day-to-day operation. She is the one communicating with you, coordinating with subcontractors, working through city requirements, and staying connected with SDG&E when utility steps are involved.
Our goal is simple: keep communication moving. We work hard to return calls the same day, keep decisions from getting stuck, and make sure there is a clear person responsible for moving your project forward.
When something on the job site needs attention, you don’t have to navigate a chain of unanswered messages. You have a direct point of contact who knows your project and is accountable for keeping it on track.
Walk through an unfinished ADU in San Diego County and you will often find that the physical work is well underway. The framing is complete, the drywall is installed, and the finishes may be close to done.
What is holding the project up is frequently everything happening behind the scenes: a permit correction waiting for a response, a utility request that was not submitted at the right time, or an inspection that was not scheduled when the project was ready.
These are not always construction issues. They are coordination issues.
And coordination failures are what leave homeowners explaining why the ADU they planned to rent in the summer is still waiting for final approvals, utility connections, or occupancy months later.
The HiLite Group manages the regulatory and utility side of your build alongside the construction schedule. Once plans are approved, we help coordinate the next steps, including utility requirements, inspection milestones, and trade scheduling, so each part of the project moves forward in the right sequence.
Construction should not be waiting on coordination. Coordination should not be waiting on construction.
Our job is to keep both moving together until your ADU is complete.
Many ADU delays come from decisions that should have been addressed early in the process but are discovered after construction is already underway.
Our goal is to work through the critical approvals, selections, and scheduling decisions with you before the first subcontractor arrives. By addressing these details up front, we create a clearer roadmap for the build and reduce avoidable interruptions once construction begins.
Before work starts, we help you establish the key pieces that keep the project moving, including:
A successful ADU build depends on more than good construction. It depends on having the right plan, the right information, and the right people coordinating every step from the beginning.
Geno and Jackie meet you at the property, review your plans or sketches, and walks the lot to assess the regulatory and utility factors specific to your address. In about a week we’ll meet to review our recommendations with you. By the end of this meeting, you’ll have a working understanding of what your ADU should cost, how long it should take, and which approvals or utility steps will need the most attention in the first sixty days.
We help you assemble the right subcontractor team, drawing from our vetted San Diego trade network while incorporating any trades you choose to bring on yourself. We then gather bids for you to review side by side and establish clear written expectations before any work begins. These guidelines define how change orders will be priced and approved, how invoices will be reviewed before they reach you, how subcontractors, utilities and the city will be coordinated with at each milestone, and how frequently you’ll receive updates throughout the build.
Once construction begins, we coordinate the trades, track progress against each milestone, attend required inspections, and verify invoices before they reach you. Our goal is to keep you informed before issues become surprises — giving you clear visibility into the project, addressing challenges early, and helping guide the build toward a smooth final inspection without last-minute scrambling.
A complete ADU build in San Diego County can vary significantly depending on square footage, design choices, site conditions, permitting requirements, and the level of customization involved.
Under a traditional general contracting model, the contract price may include 20-30% or more in subcontractor markup, often incorporated into subcontractor pricing and overall project costs. With a project management model, the customer pays the subcontractor directly and that markup structure is replaced with a transparent flat fee, giving homeowners greater visibility into where their money is going and the potential to reduce overall project costs by $30,000 or more.
The difference is not only about cost — it’s about creating a clearer, more transparent process where you maintain visibility, accountability, and control throughout the build.
The timeline rarely fails because of construction speed. It fails because someone forgot to call SDG&E in March, the city sent back a plan correction that sat in an inbox for two weeks, or a subcontractor scheduled for Tuesday did not show until Friday and the next contractor in the schedule was already booked elsewhere. We treat all three of those failure points as ours to prevent, not the homeowner’s.
We manage detached new builds, attached additions, garage conversions, and junior ADUs throughout San Diego County. The difference is that our value is the coordination layer, not the construction itself. A design-build firm that does everything in-house has to staff carpenters, electricians, and plumbers. We help you hire the best trades for each phase, vetted from our San Diego network when you want recommendations or coordinated with contractors you already work with, and make sure they show up in the right order.
A typical San Diego ADU runs six to nine months from permit issuance through final inspection. Projects that involve a transformer upgrade, complex site conditions, or extensive city corrections can push that to ten or twelve months. The first conversation with Jackie is where we discuss the specific factors on your lot that would affect that range so the timeline you plan around is the timeline you actually get.
You can bring us in at any point. Many homeowners reach out before they have selected a designer because they want input on which architect will work well with the property and the budget. Others reach out with completed plans ready to submit to the city. Both situations are fine. The earlier we are involved, the more friction we can prevent before it becomes a delay.
It usually comes down to one thing: homeowners don’t want to be the person responsible for figuring out who to call when something stalls.
With The HiLite Group, utility delays, permit corrections, and subcontractor questions are coordinated through Jackie first, giving homeowners a clear point of contact throughout the process. Geno holds the contractor’s license and has been a licensed California contractor since 1979, while the business has been serving San Diego since 2001.
That continuity matters. Experience, accountability, and a consistent team help create a smoother ADU process from planning through completion.
