EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Deep Roots Commercial developer Brian Frakes brings a love of his home state to every project By REBECCA L. RHOADES
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hen noted Valley restaurateur Sam Fox announced that he will be building his first luxury hotel project, there was no doubt who would be bringing his vision to life: Brian Frakes, founder and principal of Common Bond Development Group. Together, the pair have changed the way Phoenicians play and eat, and now they hope to generate that same magic within the lodging industry. A fifth-generation Arizonan, born in Tucson and raised in Phoenix, Frakes didn’t set out to be in the commercial real estate business. He was a finance major at the University of Arizona and interned at an investment banking firm in New York City. When his then-girlfriend
10 | September-October 2021
got accepted in the medical school in Tucson, he decided to stay in Arizona and began working at Westcor Partners, which developed shopping malls. “It was an exciting time to be at Westcor because we got to work on a couple million square feet of major retail space, including SanTan Village in Gilbert and Chandler Fashion Center,” Frakes comments. Following the purchase of Westcor by The Macerich Company in 2012, Frakes and a few other executives from the business formed WDP Partners, a real estate development company. “What started out as a leasing job in the development department quickly evolved into leading major projects on Scottsdale Road and Mayo in Phoenix
and a Walmart-anchored shopping center in Queen Creek,” he says. The company also developed the Yuma Palms mall in Yuma. It was during his time at WDP that he first collaborated with Fox, who was looking for a location along the Central Phoenix Corridor for a new dining venue. “I remember taking a photo of this old Ducati motorcycle dealership from the suicide lane on North 7th Street, sending it to Sam, and him saying, ‘That’s the one,’” Frakes recalls. “We had a vision that the canopy, under which they used to park the motorcycles, was there for us. I mean, show me another spot in town that has a 10,000-square-foot canopy over an outdoor patio. Sam said, ‘What if we had games, such as shuffleboard, ping pong and bag tossing?’ That was the evolution of The Yard concept.” The success of The Yard encouraged Frakes to set out on his own and establish Common Bond. “I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and start my own company,” he explains. “The natural progression of my career was to take the development knowledge I had acquired while working on complicated
