 Well, welcome this afternoon. We really appreciate you coming down here on this day with fine weather So we started this journey about five years ago and during that time several our ideas were brought to the table Regarding where it would be located how it would be made what kind of features it would have if it would have a water feature And etc However, the one thing that never changed was that this facility was ultimately about the finished environment that would influence Student success. It was not just spoken of one time during a meeting and then forgotten Influencing student success was part of every decision From the value engineering space for students to practice music Theater having space to create and how students would interact with the landscape outside Sorry, this is the first residence hall in the United States built using the technique of cross-laminated timbers And so before introducing our first speaker, I'd like to recognize a couple of people that are here from Nabholz We have Steve from the president of general central region. I don't know up. He's way back there Thank you and Greg the chief operating officer and Greg the chief executive officer those are two different Greg's We have dawn the strategic growth officer Okay, so we are going we have some great speakers today And we are going to start off with dr. Simons our chancellor the University of Arkansas. Welcome Thank you flowing. Good afternoon everybody. What a great day this is I had a 45 minute speech prepared But I forgot my hat so I'm cutting it to three Everybody's very happy about that aren't you well welcome to today's beam assigning ceremony This is a a significant milestone in the construction of these residence hall It's always a fun way to mark the occasion. I haven't signed it yet I will at some point as you know the University has grown significantly over the last Recent years some 10,000 students are more in the last 10 or 11 years and while we have stabilized that growth somewhat We do still have some unmet need when it comes to student housing And I think these residence halls go a long way towards satisfying at least some of that need so by next fall We'll have an additional 708 beds if I count is right for that. I'll be available for students That's a big deal for us here and more importantly. These are different kinds of residence halls They are conceived as living learning communities and here you'll find several multidisciplinary communities focused on things like architecture and interior design and Landscape architecture and many of the arts what really this allows our students to live alongside each other And others who share their interest and participate in monthly activities that promote both academic and personal success This is just another wrinkle in our students success effort I think it's a great example how we're trying to find innovative ways to support our students Which in this case also means finds a ways for that Students can support each other through the passions that they really share. I think it's going to be a great place to live and learn Another interesting element of these residence halls is mentioned by flow is the use of cross laminated timber Because we have other speakers. I wouldn't go won't get into all the reasons of why we chose to go that route I will say that we have some objective and strategic reasons about and beyond the need of just this living space We also hope to establish that this construction was economically viable here in the state of Arkansas It might even help stimulate job creation Well, some of that's happened last September the Arkansas Economic Development Commission approved a $750,000 bond guarantee for an investor group to reopen a mill in Magnolia, Arkansas to produce CLT the project is expected to create about 60 jobs over the first two years So that's been a nice development to hear about and I hope that there will be more to come as well Every way you look at these residence halls I see an upside for our students in an upstate side for the state of Arkansas I'm really looking forward to getting students moved in next fall So many thanks to flow Johnson for all you do in her team and housing to Mike Johnson and and folks in facilities Managements as well as everyone at Navholt construction and modus studios I now have the pleasure of inviting our vice chancellor for academic affairs Charles Robinson up to say a few words Welcome Charles Now the chance was from Michigan. So if he's cold then I'm freezing. I'm from Houston, Texas. So I will definitely not be long You know when I flow asked me to say a few words. I couldn't help but but look up the definition of beams That's what professors do. All right. I had to think about what could I say that would add some perspective to this? And you know what I learned is that higher educational Education professionals and beams have some things in common a beam It you know alone standing alone doesn't it can do some things but not very much But if you put some of them together then they can support a structure and a structure that is important A higher educational professional is the same way when we are alone We can only do so much when we act like we are the only academic affairs matters or student affairs matters or Or the financial affairs matters we can only do so much Would you bring us together then we form a university and the university that supports students in Every one of their endeavors in discovering themselves beams. They will in Response to the pressure that they receive from holding the structure. Sometimes they bend They may bend but but they don't break not good beams and and that's what I love about Higher education professionals. We deal with stress all the time Particularly in student affairs things we couldn't even make up if it was the most creative ones of us And yet we and we it causes us to bend But we do everything in our power not to break and just like the beam We work in that way and then lastly because it's cold We we will we understand the importance of the beam in terms of again Not being a drawing attention to itself We don't really go around looking at structures to focus on the beam we look at the structure and And so when we work together as higher education professionals, we're not doing this to draw attention to ourselves We are trying to support our students because they're the structures that matter to us And that's why we're build we're building this because we want students to have more Opportunity more access more success and so I'm excited to be part of this as the Chancellor mentioned There's so many people to thank but you know, I have to go right to flow because flow is my person that I talk to She keeps me regularly updated. She's and she is fine-tuning this. I'm trust me She's all over it and and we appreciate her leadership in all of this and flow I just want to recognize you and give you a hand right now for the work that you're doing on this. Thank you so much All right now. I'm out of the way. I told you to be quick and We have Chris come on up Chris And thank you so much All right, well, I'm Chris where both modus studio and the fall on mr. Robinson's Claims about it takes an entire team to make this happen and under the leadership also Flow Johnson who we we've always through every step of the design process here The question has always come up What is the best thing for a student at the University of Arkansas and she's always kept us on point for that Whatever decision we had in front of us and for that we're very thankful But but my firm along with Lear's Wine's Apple and Associates of Boston and Mackie Mitchell architects The St. Louis and all our consultants which includes BT me engineering consultants ink Equilibrium out of Vancouver who is our CLT a specialty engineer And DCI and many more a lot of people it takes to make this come together All of that working very closely with Rob and his team at knapholz. I just want to say I think for us what's so pioneering about this project and and flows already mentioned. It's it's the first in the nation It's currently the largest mass timber project under construction in the United States But but all of that to bring it back to the question of students and how it's going to really affect them in a positive way For us is this sort of organic natural connection to this material that's going to be ever present throughout the project And how the site interacts that we really think that it's a unique opportunity to make a really special community down here in This part of campus that is meaningful to the 708 students are going to live here So thank you for your trust and and and the opportunity to work on this great project. Thank you Wow what a day what welcome on this beautiful December afternoon in in Northwest Arkansas You never know what you're going to get this time of year What I do here flow All right, I'm Rob Dodd executive vice president of operations for knapholz and I like to you don't think that you have a board Housing facilities for allowing us this opportunity to partner with you It's always exciting when we get to work on a special unique project and this project certainly is We love our partnership with you of a and and just appreciate the opportunity, you know We're not just building a beautiful facility here We're building a home for 708 students or building a community and creating an environment That will provide learning opportunities to the students that are moving in here and for generations to come It will definitely be a special place for students for a long time to come We're also as previously mentioned. We're promoting the temporary industry in the state of Arkansas and in the region We're promoting the University of Arkansas and we're promoting Northwest Arkansas We've given given hope and hosted countless tours of this facility from groups across the nation I recently had an opportunity to go speak at a timber conference at the University of Maine and It just blew me away walking into a room of you know of strangers in a place that I knew nothing about and They know they know us. They know they know what's going on here, and they know what we're doing So it's unbelievable to me I'm gonna repeat a little bit what Chris said about the you know the design the design team and the folks that work on It's just to make a point, you know thanks to the design team Lears-Wines-Apple Mackie Mitchell modus the architecture team Olin Landscapers DCI civil engineers TME mechanical electrical engineers ECI and equilibrium our structural engineers We've got integrity that's been providing lead consulting Cromwell That's doing commissioning on a building and McClellan. Let's do in testing Just to say that to show that it's been a truly collaborative effort by a lot of people You know and with the university with you know with the university folks the design team And when the napholz team, you know following about it roughly a year of design and a year of construction We're where we're at today about eight months away from from completing this And what a project this is I mean it's a project every once in a while You get to work on on a project that has it all and this this one does it's got it all From the rammed aggregate piers that support the massive foundation and under this building The cast-in-place concrete core towers that carry out the the shear loads on the building All the mass timber structure the coordination that's required to bring all these elements together including the computer modeling of over three thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight penetrations that are in the wood here Not to mention the logistics of just getting the material here and all the complex site logistics It really does have it all you know a big thanks shout-out goes to Mark Dilday John Strack leading the efforts here on site every day And the team that they're leading the subcontractors all of the crass people that are working really hard and more importantly They're working safely to make this project a success a success And since we're here celebrating the topping out of the building structure I'd like to tip my hat to the crew responsible for erecting the structure. This is actually a napple self-reform crew We took on the challenge of doing something that not only we but nobody has ever done before you know We're erecting the first large-scale mass timber residence hall in the nation and and as Chris said it's the largest mass timber project of any kind in the United States and they're just knocking it out of the park so kudos to the team that's doing that So why why do we have topping out ceremonies? What is this all about? You know, it's a great opportunity to get together and have a party for sure But there's a lot more to it than that You know after working long and hard to get to this point It's a great opportunity to just take a brief pause and reflect on how far we've come Celebrate our successes to this point and think about where we're going You know here in a few minutes We're going to hoist this this ceremonial beam and you'll notice that there's a tree and a flag that will be hoisted with it With many projects that are on the school year cycle We happen to do a lot of topping out ceremonies during the holiday season so a lot of people see the tree on the beams and think that's a project Christmas tree and And it may be and we may even throw a few lights and garland on this one but there's a legend behind the the topping out and You know legend has it that the topping out of a structure is an ancient Scandinavian tradition Structures were constructed out of wood very fitting. It's what we're doing here today They believe that trees were their ancestors So they placed an evergreen tree which they considered to be a good spirit on the highest point of the structure to appease the tree Dwelling spirits of their displaced ancestors So when our European ancestors came here, they brought their traditions with them one of which was topping out structures And we continue today When we see the components and elements of the topping out ceremony We should give pause and and thanks for the blessings that these elements represent First the beam when we hoist the beam We should give thanks for being blessed with the safe completion of the most arduous phase of the construction project Second the evergreen tree She give thanks for being blessed with the beautiful creation and natural beauty that surrounds us Especially here in Northwest Arkansas and finally the flag we truly are blessed to live in the greatest nation on earth and enjoy the many freedoms that we have So before I close let me leave you with the final thought Just look behind you. This is a massive structure a lot of timber in this job 144,000 cubic feet, you know, just take a look at it and the scale of it Yet with the amount of timber that's used in this structure That amount of timber is regrown in Arkansas Forest alone in a matter of hours. Just think about that. That's really cool What a sustainable product On behalf of Nav Holts, I'd like to thank you once again for the opportunity Wish you all a happy holiday season I look forward to seeing everybody back here again in the summer when it's about 60 degrees warmer and we celebrate opening this baby So before you leave today, make sure we've got some mementos We actually cut these mementos out of the dunnage that was shipped over here On the CLT so make sure you leave with one of these and again. Thank you very much Okay, so come and sign the beam if you haven't we have refreshments over here and what after they get done flying it will Gather over here by this faculty sign if you want to go on the tour Thank you