By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A proposed arena-led community hub at 1200 King Rd. advanced at Burlington’s Committee of the Whole last week, after councillors heard delegations and debated funding and timelines during a multi-day meeting covering several city business items.
Several delegates spoke to council about agenda item 8.2: community facilities update and recommendations for 1200 King Rd.
In the item, staff directed council to “endorse the updated scope of community facilities under consideration on the 1200 King Road development to include an event centre (arena), community centre (inclusive of aquatics and/or basketball facilities), recreational ice facility, conference-multi-purpose space and parking facility.”
It also directs the chief administrative officer (CAO) or designate to proceed with a “Detailed Due Diligence Phase,” inclusive of various financial aspects.
If approved, the CAO would report back to committee and council with a “recommended funding strategy, partnership model, and implementation plan for consideration prior to any capital or financial commitments, targeted for Q2, 2027.”
Louis Frapporti, a partner at Gowling WLG who spoke on behalf of Alinea Land Corporation, which owns the property under discussion, was the first delegate to speak to the item.
Frapporti said that our greatest collective risk as a community if this development doesn’t move forward is “the risk of missed opportunity.”
“Alinea came to the city not simply asking what it could build,” Frapporti said. “But asking a larger and more civic-minded question: what should be here? What would justify the development of one of the most important remaining parcels of land in this region? The answer to that question is a community where housing, recreation, health, education, employment, and transit are combined.”
Frapporti described Alinea as “deeply invested” in sports infrastructure and programming, evidenced by its investment in the TD Coliseum Project in Hamilton, as well as its ownership interest in the Ottawa Senators NHL franchise.
Alinea has been in conversation for months with Basketball Canada about a performance facility and tournament play year-round, as well as with the Ontario Hockey League around an expansion franchise in Burlington, according to Frapporti.
He said that the opportunity can only be seized “if the facility can be built in a timely fashion.”
“There are moments in the life of a city when the future is unusually visible,” Frapporti said. “This is one of them.”
Councillor Kelvin Galbraith, of Ward 1 in which 1200 King Rd. sits, asked Frapporti how soon the arena could be completed.
While he couldn’t provide a definitive date, Frapporti instead asked: “Wouldn’t the Memorial Cup year in 2030 be fantastic?”
Frapporti acknowledged that the development will create traffic, but said that the benefits will outweigh any potential congestion.
“There will be an enormous amount of economic activity, a good deal of investment in the community and amenities that the community desperately needs,” Frapporti said.
Ward 2 councillor and mayoral candidate Lisa Kearns expressed concerns about endorsing the expedited permit process for the planning phase of the lands.
“What we’re asking for today is a report back in almost one full year, Q2 2027, on the funding strategy partnership model and an implementation plan,” Kearns said. “Have you no way to get that to us sooner?”
Frapporti said that the process is “entirely within our (Alinea’s) hands.”
“We can go as fast as the city goes in relation to that process,” Frapporti said. “As I alluded to at the beginning of my presentation, moving with as much dispatch as possible in a coordinated fashion is going to be critical. My comment with reference to the planning application as a whole is that the realization of the event centre as a necessary condition requires that we move forward with the planning application as quickly as we can. What this council and staff do with the planning application is not a matter of my presentation here today.”
Kearns said that “the information that we would gather today, which would essentially be on council approval of this item, would not allow us to have the same decision-making authority because the information would be stale by reporting back by Q2 2027.”
“We’re a board of governance,” Kearns said. “It’s our role to make sure that we’re mitigating risk. And that would be a huge risk to come back in 2027 with decisions around funding, financing, and implementation based on data from a whole year ago, with a whole new group of people probably.”
“I wouldn’t presume to get ahead of the city’s due diligence in terms of the economic impacts and what it’s prepared to commit,” Frapporti said. “But given the tight funding window from senior levels of government and the need to create clarity around what the private sector partners are prepared to commit, and this is entirely the purview of you and your fellow councillors, creating a structure that permits us to move forward to explore what the agreements would look like, what a funding structure would look like so that everything is approval ready as soon as possible in the new year would be critical.”
Andrea Dodd, executive director of the Aldershot Business Improvement Area (BIA), spoke on behalf of the organization in support of the development.
“Aldershot is a community that continues to evolve and grow,” Dodd said. “This project represents an incredible opportunity, not only for Aldershot, but for Burlington as a whole. As a business community, we see tremendous value in projects that do more than simply add density. We support projects that create complete communities. Places where people can live, work, gather, connect, and thrive at every stage of life.”
Dodd said that the development brings together “housing, retail, recreation, entertainment, education, parks, trails, public gathering spaces, and economic opportunity in one master planned destination.”
“To us, this represents the future of Aldershot,” Dodd said.
Jim Young, chair of Partnering Aldershot and delegating on behalf of the community group, also voiced his support for the development.
Young said that Aldershot is “far behind” the rest of Burlington in terms of sports and fitness facilities.
He noted that the 1200 King Rd. project presents an “opportunity to redress those facility imbalances,” and the development promises “precisely the kind of community facilities Partnering Aldershot has been advocating for some time.”
Young said that Alinea has been “very involved” with local community groups and organizations in the planning stage of the development.
Representatives from the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club, the YMCA, and the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays also delegated to council to support the development.
Andrew Scott, chief transformation officer for the city, gave a presentation to council about the agenda item, calling 1200 King Road “one of Burlington’s last major urban growth opportunities.”
“What really sets this development apart from other MTSAs [Major Transit Station Areas] across the GTA is that almost all others will require provincial transit investments as a facilitator of that growth,” Scott said. “Here, two-way all-day GO already exists.”
Scott explained that while there is no financial commitment based on approval of the item, the estimated cost of the arena will be $150 million to $200 million, and $300 million for the full hub.
The city will explore public-private partnerships, senior government funding, Tax Increment Financing (TIF), and a private operator model as funding strategies.
Before voting on the item, councillors gave comments on the development.
“We have an opportunity here to build a community with an amenity first,” Galbraith said. “And that will act as a housing accelerator. An arena with many potential community assets, ice, pools, gymnasiums, meeting spaces and courts.
Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said that the arena will be “a draw not only across Burlington, but across the region.”
“This is truly a great moment and a model of not only what a complete community looks like,” Meed Ward said. “But what partnership and collaboration look like with the community, other levels of government, and with the private sector.”
Ward 3 councillor and mayoral candidate Rory Nisan said that while he is “hopeful for a great outcome,” he expressed concern about funding for the project.
“I want the municipal funding, the tax base funding as low as possible,” Nisan said. “I know it’s possible, and we’ve seen successes in other municipalities. But we’ve also seen cases where it didn’t turn out that well.”
Kearns said that she wants the city to be at “the front of the line working with upper-level government partners” to secure funding for the development.
The motion passed unanimously.
The development will now move into the due diligence phase of the project.
