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The long waitlist for daycare in Prince Edward County has attracted national attention — and funding for an expansion of The Hub Child and Family Centre. In addition to support from Prince Edward Lennox and Addington Social Services, an expansion grant from the joint federal and provincial initiative, Canada Wide Early Learning Child Care means a whole new HUB opens at Base31 in January with licensed spaces for 49 children.

It’s never a good idea to visit a destination expecting it to be some half-baked moniker, like “the Venice of the South” or “the New York of the West Coast.” But when a friend’s wedding brought me to hole up in Ontario’s Prince Edward County earlier this summer, I couldn’t help but fall for a preconceived notion: a sleepy, agrarian region that buzzed with the same creative energy I felt bubbling up in the Hudson Valley some 15 years ago.

Long rows of concrete barracks sprawl across a 70-acre plateau on the edge of Picton. Some have been buffed into sleek venues; others are quietly crumbling, with peeling paint, boarded windows and crooked chimneys. Welcome to Base31, Prince Edward County’s most unexpected cultural destination: a semi-preserved military relic that’s part Second World War ghost town, part creative playground.

This issue of the Picton Gazette explores everything on at the Base. A special feature details the reimagined campus, with its ongoing renovations, brand new Commissary, and permanent Night Watch installation on 8 acres. Special sections detail the summer lineups at the Drill Hall and Sergeants Mess.

Base31 is on the move. Named New Business of the Year at the 2024 Quinte Business Achievement Awards last month, it also announced three new partners — CaraCo Group, Fieldgate Homes and Paradise Developments have joined the consortium, more than making up for the loss of Tercot Communities earlier this year.

Alexandra De Gasperis is Vice President of DECO Homes, an arm of legendary Ontario builders TACC, and one the partners at PEC Community Partners, the consortium behind the redevelopment of the former Camp Picton, or No. 31 Bombing and Gunnery School.

Tucked away in Picton, Prince Edward County’s largest community more than two hours east of Toronto, sits nearly 700 acres of history — history that can be bought for the price of nearly $15 million.

PEC Community Partners Inc. hosted a gathering on Friday, May 20th at their newly acquired property on the Picton Heights. The property, known most recently as Loch Sloy Business Park, was most famously known as No. 31 Bombing and Gunnery School, an air base during World War II, which morphed into Camp Picton once the war was over.

It seemed a moment for the history books. Two years almost to the day after a consortium of four major developers purchased the former military base, Camp Picton, Council’s Planning and Development Committee voted 10-3 to approve their Official Plan Amendment application.