CENTRAL BEDEQUE - Business is growing in the small community of Central Bedeque and the hub of this growth is the century-old Callbeck's building.
Shane MacDougall, general manager of the Central Development Corp., said things have come together over the past 18 months.
"It started in June of 2010," MacDougall said. "The facility had been sold to a private company and it ended up coming back to the previous owners, which was the Callbeck family."
It came back to the Callbeck family in bad shape and needing renovations. So the family offered the building to the community for development.
MacDougall said the building is over 30,000 square feet with seven storeys.
"The timing was pretty good that there was a call centre company that was... outgrowing the space we had for them," added MacDougall. "So we combined that with a couple of other things."
The community, East Prince Holdings Ltd. and Central Development Corp. put a plan together to redevelop the building.
The tenants in the refurbished facility are the call centre - Thing 5, Bedeque Total Fitness, a café called CaFay, and the Rural Action Centre, which is comprised of a number of government and non-governmental agencies and support services, such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Innovation P.E.I. and the Central Development Corp.
The Rural Action Centre was "the other piece of the plan that made it work," said MacDougall. "That combined with the call centre formed the base."
He said work is still underway to attract more tenants to the centre. He said the five businesses located there take up about 60 per cent of the available space and employ about 80 people.
An open house is being planned for Saturday, Dec. 10, to celebrate the completion of the redevelopment of William Callbeck Facilities.