By Pepper Parr

July 23, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

Part one of a two part article on a proposed development in the east end of Burlington,

The redevelopment of the Lakeside Plaza Village has a long history. It goes back to the first term of ward 5 Councillor Paul Sharman, who at the time was doing everything he could to get something happening to a plaza that was run down at best and not getting any better.

Its heyday was more than two decades ago,

The owner of the property wasn’t interested in doing very much with it. Sharman was having the devil of a time just to get into the office of the people that owned the development.

It was frustrating and disappointing. He had some strong ideas on what could be done – but nothing was happening.

At one point a former city manager, Jeff Fielding told Sharman that the city could get interested in rolling the Skyway arena that was behind the plaza, into a possible bigger development. “All I need” said Fielding at the time “is a Staff Direction.”

Fielding got his Staff Direction.

Direct the Director of Planning and Building and request the Executive Director of the Burlington Economic Development Corporation as follows:

Prepare a series of re-development options for the site based on intensive mixed use re-development and approach the owners of the property with the redevelopment plans; and

Investigate and report on the authority available to permit the use of incentives for re-developing the site, and

Provide an estimate of the resources needed to prepare and implement a Community Improvement Plan.

It didn’t take long to get things moving.

What we saw next was a very impressive community meeting that had the owner of the property in the room along with the planning consultant and the architect.

Participants were asked to talk about what they wanted to see happen.

Many months later architect Cynthia Zahoruck released some drawings that showed the Skyway Arena blended into the plaza development and also tied to Burloak Park that was scheduled for a major upgrade. Zahoruk’s work was impressive.

The Skyway Plaza, as it was known to many, was an east end commercial location that was as close to a suburban slum as Burlington is going to see, had suddenly become headline news – especially in ward 5.

There is a basement bowling alley that hasn’t been used in years. There was once a Swiss Chalet outlet. However the demographics of the community began to change and the plaza began to lose some of its retailers. No parking problems at this location.

At the time the Economic Development Corporation was going through a leadership change – Frank McKeown was brought in as the new Executive Director; he had previously been the Mayor’s Chief of Staff.

The owners of the property now saw an opportunity to do something significant with the plaza. Last week they held the first of the public presentations on what they had in mind.

It was radically different than anything anyone expected.

More tomorrow on just what the proposed development will mean and the kind of opposition that is developing and how the developer justifies this level of intensification.