A Quick Chat with Joseph Alberga

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Joseph Alberga, the Director of Marketing and Sales at HR Developments and Lindvest Properties. We discussed his marketing approach to HR’s and Lindvest’s new communities, as well as what the future holds for both companies.

NewInHomes (NIH): Can you explain the difference between HR Developments and Lindvest Properties?

Joseph Alberga (JA): Basically, it’s the separation between low-rise and high-rise. It’s not necessarily mandated that way, it’s just how it worked out. Lindvest tends to focus on the land development side, and we have a couple of successful high-rise projects under that name. HR Developments has been for many, many years the low-rise building arm of the group.

NIH: You obviously have a lot of experience marketing for condos and low-rises. What inspired the marketing approach at B.streets?

JA: It was a collaboration with a really good team. We had the great fortune of working with LA Ads as our advertising firm. The marketing concept was born organically because of the community we’re building in. If you look at all the cranes in downtown Toronto, they’re all spread out, but there’s really nothing in The Annex. Being at the crossroads of Bathurst and Bloor, we discovered that B.streets was the perfect name, and we ran with it.

We went with a more grassroots approach – we stayed away from stock photography. We hired Tom Ryaboi to do some shooting; he went down there and just shot everyday people doing their thing, and that ended up spearheading the rest of the campaign.

NIH: Do you always base your marketing approach on the location?

JA: It starts with that. We always look at building in communities that offer something, and when we’re looking at the marketing of them, we know that’s what’s most important to end-users – whether it’s families or individuals. If we can take cues from what the location has to offer, we will. In the real estate game, it’s always ‘location, location, location,’ and if that can feed the success of the community, we might as well use it to strengthen our marketing.

NIH: Speaking of locations, are there any new addresses that HR or Lindvest are going to be developing in the near future?

JA: We’ve got some exciting stuff coming to areas that we are currently building in. We have an exciting release coming this fall at a site close to our Westown project in Toronto. That one’s still in the preliminary stages.

In Markham, Cornell was a very big project for us up there. For the same area, we’re working on an extensive development that will include residential, commercial - the whole gamut.

We would like to thank Joseph for the quick chat, and we look forward to all of HR Developments and Lindvest Properties’ current and future projects.