By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Earlier this month, the Alinea Land Corporation hosted a guided walking tour of the upcoming 1200 King Rd. development, which they are overseeing. The walking tour was attended by members of the Burlington community.
Among the representatives from Alinea was Louis Frapporti, a practicing lawyer for 30 years and former managing partner for Gowling WLG, an international law firm located in Hamilton. Frapporti met the Paletta family, who owns Alinea, through his work at Gowling, becoming an advisor for the family and its businesses.
A member of the family, Paul Paletta, asked Frapporti to continue with his role after Pat, the patriarch of the family, passed away, and Paul assumed control and majority ownership of the business.
“We began talking about how the company could rebrand and transition into a company beyond one that held land, into one that developed very sizable projects in partnership with the city and others, and how that could be the next phase of the family’s business operations,” Frapporti said. “And in that process and through those discussions, with the help of many others, the company was rebranded as Alinea, and took on a completely different identity.”
Frapporti deals with partnerships, and stakeholder and community engagement.
When talking about the 1200 King Rd. development, Frapporti said that he looks at it as one of the most important projects he’s been involved with in his career.
“I would say although I am nearing the end of my career, the reason for that is that I’ve never been involved in something that has the potential to impact so many lives over such an extended period of time,” Frapporti said.
Alinea owns and operates five major building projects across Burlington, some of which are even larger in scale than 1200 King Rd.
“Collectively, these assets represent the majority of the developable land within the City of Burlington’s urban boundary, owned by one developer,” Frapporti said. “And we’ve looked and I don’t think that’s the case anywhere else in the country. So the proportion of the city’s future that is under the control of one developer is so large, we’re all deeply aware of the fact that there’s a responsibility that goes with how these projects are delivered in advance.”
“Paul [Paletta’s] view was you can’t do that simply by saying, ‘I’m going to get approvals to build what I want, and then I’m going to build,’” Frapporti said.
“And that’s a challenge because there’s so many organizations, individuals, groups, beyond City Hall that are important members of the community,” Frapporti said. “You’ve got to find a way to reach out and connect with them all. And we’ve been meeting with them, and we’re deeply concerned about their perspectives, their views, and their vision.”
Frapporti also spoke about the fact that consultation with the community essentially began when Alinea had to convince the city to change the sites from Zoned Employment to Zoned Mixed Use and that the conversations with city councillors are still ongoing.
“We are having long conversations with Councillor Nisan about environmental issues and transportation, conversations with Councillor Stolte on housing, which is her responsibility, conversations with Councilor Bentivegna around sports, recreation, and culture,” Frapporti said. “So that is ongoing, and continues, certainly in relation to the arena elements of the project and also as it relates to the natural elements of the project, which were an important part of this.”
Frapporti also said that the attendance at the open house event last month was lower than Alinea expected, which he has a theory about.
“We’ve taken that, in part, to be a function of the fact that there’s probably not a great deal of controversy over this particular site density,” Frapporti said.
As far as the walking tour, Frapporti said that preparation for that began long ago.
“Going back several years, I began a series of meetings with Mohawk College, the Royal Botanical Gardens, Conservation Halton, Burlington Green, a variety of groups getting some feedback around their perspectives on the natural heritage elements of that site, things that they thought would be important to emphasize and considerations that we might bring to the project,” Frapporti said.
Frapporti also said that he understands the concerns that residents have about the financial competition that the 1200 King Rd. development could bring, but doesn’t see it as an “us vs. them” situation.
“There’s sometimes, in every community and city, a sense of those who have economic interests that are outside of development, that somehow it’s going to negatively impact the business,” Frapporti said. “So, for example, if we build restaurants at King Road, you have restaurateurs that are down at the waterfront or on Brant Street saying ‘It’s going to take business away from me.’ But you know what happens when you invest billions of dollars in assets? It promotes international tourism. In this way, it lifts all boats.”
“You’ve got tens of thousands more people coming to Burlington,” Frapporti said. “Yes, of course, we want them to come to King Road and go to the arena and walk the trails. But in reality, that’s half a day. They’re going to go to the waterfront, they’re going to see the balance of the city.”
Partnering Aldershot is one of the community groups Alinea has spoken to about 1200 King.
Connie Price, a member of Partnering Aldershot, said that the group found out about the development through their chair, Jim Young, after Frapporti initiated contact with him upon hearing Young delegate at City Hall regarding the Burlington Economic Development-sponsored presentation on 1200 King.
“I got in touch with the developers and said ‘We would like to know more about it,’” Price said. “And so they came and put a presentation on for us featuring what they would like to see in that area.”
Price said that she is optimistic about the development overall.
“If everything comes out the way that they hope, it certainly looks like it will be a wonderful asset to Burlington, and certainly to Aldershot,” Price said.
Price also said that Partnering Aldershot has made it clear to Alinea that they want them to make sure that Aldershot’s unique identity is kept intact.
“And so, we’ve made it plain to the developers of 1200 that it’s important to recognize the history of Aldershot and incorporate that somehow into what they’re building and that it not just be a new, modern satellite type thing,” Price said.
Price said that she’s also very happy with one of the traffic plans that Alinea has regarding King Road.
“We’re very pleased to see that they are putting the service road through the property so it doesn’t bring more cars down on Plains Road, because right now that is just terrible,” Price said.
Price said that Partnering Aldershot has suggested to Alinea that they should incorporate a community centre into the property that is accessible to all residents, but especially seniors.
According to Price, Alinea has been very receptive to Partnering Aldershot’s feedback.
“They have listened,” Price said. “We’ve never gotten any, at least I certainly haven’t gotten any negative feedback from them saying, ‘Oh, well, no, we can’t do that. That’s not modern enough,’ or, that type of thing, they listen to us. And certainly, when they came to Partnering Aldershot, they listened and a lot of us had a lot to say.”
“So it remains to be seen what happens,” Price said. “I mean, people can listen and not do anything, but the feeling we have so far is that they are listening to the community, so we hope that they will follow through.”
Young said that after meeting with various community groups in Aldershot, it seemed that support for the development was almost unanimous.
“[We thought] we should get involved and try to influence it in some way,” Young said. “Obviously, a group like Partnering Aldershot is not going to move a developer very much, but we thought it was better to be onside with the development and maybe be able to nudge it, rather than go and fight a development that’s probably going to happen anyway.”
Young said that Partnering Aldershot is trying to reflect what the community’s desires for the project are, and said that Alinea has done a great job with keeping them up to date with what’s going on with the development.
“They’ve done some awesome outreach to the community to at least ask how they can help,” Young said.
“In the big picture, will we change a whole lot?” Young said. “Would they move big sections of the development because we preferred it? Probably not. But at least we get the feeling that there’s some sort of influence there.”
Young said that Partnering Aldershot has tried to influence Alinea to move the planned retail area of the development closer to the west end of Aldershot, because of a lack of a grocery store there, but so far has been unsuccessful. Currently, the retail area is planned to be closer to King Road.
“Presumably they have the expertise and the consultants that can give them that information,” Young said. “Whereas we are going more on gut feelings and local sentiment, rather than any serious research.”
Young said that developing retail on the east end could discourage grocery store chains from opening up there because of its proximity to a nearby Fortinos.
Young also attended the walking tour and said that the thing that struck him most was the size of the land, especially after looking at the rendering of the development.
“It’s almost like a small town within a town,” Young said.
To find out more about the 1200 King Rd. development, residents can visit 1200kingroad.ca.
Correction notice: this article has been corrected to note that Louis Frapporti is a former managing partner at Gowling WLG, and to state that Frapporti initiated contact with Partnering Aldershot through Jim Young. Our apologies for any inconvenience.
