 Thank you all so much for being here today. Before we start I'd like to ask Councilman Howard Duvall to open us with a prayer as we begin today's festivities. Let us pray. Father God we thank you for this beautiful day. The weather lends itself to our good spirits as we have this groundbreaking ceremony. Thank you for the foresight of the City of Columbia for having this Bull Street project and for the work that the Hughes Development has put in to making this a success. We ask you to watch over the construction of this building to keep safe those that labor in the construction and to make it a joyful place for the new employees that will come to locate in it. We're asking your name on it. Thank you very much for that Councilman Duvall. That was great. And thank you all so much for being here today. My name is Robert Hughes. I'm president of Hughes Development Corporation. We are the master developer of the Bull Street District and developer of the West Long Building which we are here to celebrate. It's pretty overwhelming and as I started to think about today's event to think about all the tapping in the last 12 months and where likely all of us were 12 months ago today. Learning what the word quarantine really meant, worrying for ourselves personally, for our families and for ourselves professionally and really not knowing what would happen next. So it's really you know it's hard to not keep in mind all of the hardship and the loss but it does make it even even more sweet and even somewhat humbling to be here today on this beautiful day celebrating something new and wonderful like the construction of this new building. Before we start I really want to introduce everyone up front with us Councilman Howard Duvall, Carl Blackstone, head of the Columbia Chamber, Bob Hughes, a chairman of our company, father and true visionary behind the Bull Street District. It's really clear that we would nothing would be out here today if it was not for him. Mayor Steve Benjamin you can say the same really has been an instrumental leader for this city and leader behind the project so thank you Mayor Benjamin for being here and then Becky Lafitte and Frank Elevee two of the partners inside of Robinson Gray Law Firm the lead tenant for the West Long Building. So thank you all so much for being here. There's also way too many people to thank in the crowd. First our company Hughes Development here located with us today we have Chandler Cox who's the project manager for Bull Street, Janie Quinn the Bull Street District Manager. I see other faces out here from Randy Boggs and Anita Webb to others that make Bull Street happen every single day so thank you guys for being here. City of Columbia obviously our partner in this project from day one from Missy Gentry who I understand is celebrating a milestone birthday today so thank you Missy for joining us on your birthday. I believe City Manager Teresa Wilson is here so thank you for being here Ryan Coleman Head of Economic Development and of course Jeffrey Palin and Gregory Tucker who has been the main liaison with the city for Bull Street so thank you. Perkins and Will architecture firm is here. Brassfield and Gory the building contractor is here. C.R. Jackson the civil contractor is here. Civil engineer Davis and Floyd is here structural engineer Britt Peters several members of the Bull Street Commission are here and then last but not least two people very near indeed of me my wife and my mom are here so it's a very special day and I'm happy to be able to celebrate it with all of you. Over the last 12 months a whole lot has happened a lot's changed in our world and a lot's changed out here at Bull Street. Over the last 12 months we've opened the first national retailers at Bull Street REI and Starbucks both behind us. Town Park at Bull Street the townhomes have started their next phase continued their sales and their success Merrill Gardens Senior Living opened and welcomed its first residents to Bull Street. The first phase of the Bull Street Park was completed which will be named and opened later this spring. The Babcock building one of the largest historic renovation projects in the state started construction and even after a devastating fire in September will rebuild its dome and welcome its first residents into that building in 2022. And lastly what brings us here today is we announced the West Lawn building. This building will be one of a kind first of its kind in our state and really came to life in late 2019 when we got a call from friends and folks we knew at Robinson Gray Law Firm that said hey we're outgrown our space we're looking to move do you have any old cool buildings at Bull Street that would fit us? We said no there are no buildings the size you need at Bull Street left but why do you want an old building what is it about an old building that attracts you that makes you want to move to Bull Street or think about that and they said they wanted something unique something cool something to differentiate it themselves and showed the ideals and the the values of their firm. Well we had been lucky enough to have been talking about a new building type mass timber cross-laminated timber new building structural material just recently allowed in the international building code in the United States in 2015 that accomplished all of those things but in new construction West Lawn will be the first mass timber office building private mass timber office building in the state of South Carolina it will it actually we've recently got a study where it will produce 38% less carbon by its production because of the construction type than a traditional steel or concrete building it also creates some of the most beautiful office space you can create with wood ceilings wood walls and will create a really unique and special environment for Robinson Gray that we think will differentiate the building from the others in the market and really others in the southeast. So Robinson Gray came to us we worked together we created the beautiful building that i think there are brochures that have been passed out with renderings and pictures 79,000 square feet of office and retail space breaking ground today we'll open next April welcome Robinson Gray into the Bull Street district and with that I'd like to bring up Cal Watson the managing partner of Robinson Gray to walk us through their story and what they're doing here and we're excited to have them so thank you Cal and team. Thank you very much on behalf of Robinson Gray I want to thank everybody who made this day possible to say that we're excited about our move to West Lawn next year is a complete understatement we we literally can't wait. Robert is right everything he said is is is exactly right we reached out to Robert and his team last year we described our vision and boy did they deliver we we found the huge group to be a perfect a perfect partner for us and very easy to work with and we can't thank them enough along with the team they assembled including the architects from Perkins and Will we are really in awe of what you've done and we cannot thank you enough and we are very excited that I'll move here next year. I also want to thank the city of Columbia just for the vision this mayor and everybody else for the vision of this area we really have embraced the idea of this area the vision is incredible and we we are looking forward to being a part of this area and watch the growth over the next few years. I'd like to take a moment also to acknowledge and recognize the other people from Robison Gray who are here we have Janie Langdale Janie's our director of marketing um Robin Carroll who is our director of administration and my law partners Bill Metzger, Frank Elby, Becky Lafitte and Bobby Steff who are here today so again uh we this is a team effort on our part and we we certainly appreciate all the support both within the firm and this incredible group around us. So with that I'll just say thank you to everyone again and and I'll extend an open invitation to everybody who's here today to join us up on our rooftop patio in April of 2022. Thanks a lot. I think Cal's gonna regret making that offer to everyone. We're gonna see a really robust response. Um we've been doing this for a few years now I think Robert Hughes is getting really good at this y'all uh I think let's see uh I'm gonna show for political futures in uh in the talks or not uh uh obviously I'm so excited to be here with with all of you uh today for another momentous announcement on on on bull street. When we first began laborious negotiations uh with um with Bob Hughes and Robert uh in their team and Robert has done the pleasure of of of introducing our incredible leadership team from the city of Columbia but as we're sitting around uh the uh large conference room table hammering out the the details of what would become a development agreement that had alluded the state of South Carolina and the city of Columbia for so long and then it would become a venue license agreement to eventually bring professional sports back to uh Columbia. It was very easy to get caught up in the in the details in the minutiae and what was there what wasn't there uh that sometimes it was uh very difficult to grasp the entirety of the vision of what bull street could mean for the city and for this state uh would eventually became 181 acres two and a half times the size of our entire central business district the adaptive reuse of historic structures and new class A office buildings uh of of focus on our ecology in our environment uh the retention of a beautiful silvan canopy uh that defines this district with respect of the history of this district but while understanding we'd all also be standing on incredible 21st century infrastructure unlike literally unlike anything else in this entire state we're giving it five or connecting us in some amazing ways that we knew that we would attract the very best and brightest that Columbia would have to offer and indeed that the world would have to offer seeing foreign direct investment from across the Atlantic and yes it you you may think that this building that West Lawn is only being occupied by a fantastic law firm this law firm and its predecessor law firms are indeed um Cal Frank becky definitional uh of uh of leadership in this city uh for the better part of 100 years brother Steph you guys have laid the foundation for a fantastically dynamic legal community business community here the vision that very few people were willing to invest in but that Bob Hughes saw an opportunity here and an opportunity to invest in this great city and and Bob Robert I can't tell you how excited and thankful uh we are uh we took a lot of arrows together a lot of arrows and I think if you just stood in one place and did a 360 degree turn you'll see uh that the vision uh is coming well coming to life and we all of us who are believers know that there's no vision the people perish the vision is coming to life here in bull street and I'm so excited to have been a part of it all happening uh I will tell you this despite uh a tough year for all of us last year the greatest pandemics since 1918 the greatest economic disruption in an election year since 1932 and even the greatest social unrest we've seen in most of america city since 1968 that columbia has had a banner year uh that uh this past year alone uh we've seen over 1.1 billion dollars of announced or active development in the city in richland county uh building permits requests up over 120 million dollars year over year 471 million versus 348 millions amazing mixed use projects happening all across the city most people get frustrated when they hear trains I think the sound of commerce you hear you hear sirens and I and I hear fantastic first-class public services they hear helicopters and I hear the fantastic leadership of prisma health systems 30 000 employees statewide providing health care to the people of the midlands and all across the state of south carolina it doesn't bother me one bit I'm thankful for it the commercial industrial markets across columbia and midlands have performed well over 1700 jobs announced uh since the beginning of last year the mark anthony brewing project just down the road with south conge's project of the year the largest economic investment in the state of south carolina creating 300 new jobs or 400 million in investment uh there's a lot of amazing things happening all across this city but I will tell you that when the books are written the long-term vision the 20-year build-out vision of what bow street will be as we said it would be almost a decade ago will be probably the greatest and most significant contribution to the long-term prosperity and prosperity of columbia and the midlands and we're so thankful of the role that each and every one of you has played in making this happen um I would be remiss one last time if I didn't say thank you to our team at the at the city of columbia for your incredible leadership and stewardship and partnership understanding the power of public-private partnerships that's the way you get things done and we've been able to do that a lot arm in arm in huge development and and I am so excited about what is yet to come to it thank you and god bless you