 Good afternoon everyone my name is Ryan Coleman and I'm the director of economic development for the city of columbia and we're really excited to have you here on main street again today in columbia where we are open for business and we're really excited to be welcoming perfect storm bear factory here to the city of columbia and the main street district owners uh jenny and alan franklin and so with that i'm gonna turn the speaking over to matt kennel president and ceo of city center partnership followed by perfect storm owner jenny franklin and then columbia mayor daniel rickman to offer closing remarks matt thank you thank you very much ryan and welcome to main street it's so good to see everybody out today and i know i know the name of jenny franklin's new store is perfect storm but this has got to be the prettiest day uh so far this summer so it's so good to see you out here today and it's so good to be here and celebrating shopping bag retail you know we were talking earlier about the amazon and its impact on retail but retail is real i mean it is real it continues to be real we have had a number of openings recently in hospitality and restaurant businesses but there's something about shopping bag retail that gets people excited and really creates a buzz for our city and downtown um it is not dead um you know we've got other stores muskaki just a few feet away uh just in the last uh week mass general store one of our stalwart retailers announced that it's now carrying l l bean goods which is which is a big deal for mass and for columbia so shopping bag retail is here to stay and we're so glad to be here celebrating that today thank you mayor recommend and thank you for your invitation to encourage small businesses in the city columbia i would also be remiss without thanking matt and jenna on the main street district for their help in getting us to main street and i want to especially thank my father randy edwards for helping make this possible for me i came from a long line of small business entrepreneurs my grandfather ran a small business for more than 50 years and my father runs a small manufacturing company in west columbia today their wisdom and insights what helped encourage me to open the store we currently have the store is a small concept based off of a seasonal store my husband and i have operated in columbia in a mall for years now we hope that you rediscover your love of toys and games when you come into our store and we hope that you return often as we do change our selections quite frequently thank you again and for your support and we have to see you soon thank you well i think this is number 45 folks number 45 business is opening in downtown columbia and we want to thank everybody thank you for your investment in your field matt thank you for encouraging to take part of our vibrant downtown on main street it's very exciting to see small businesses grow and you know the best thing i think is going to happen here is they're going to outgrow their space and they have to move somewhere else on main street it's larger and that's what we hope for but we're excited they're making an investment here in our community and um if you hadn't figured it out the perfect storm all right i was asking i said well so where this name come from and it's it's your favorite movie right is that fair to say it's her favorite movie and i had i actually have seen this movie and then i realized why it's her favorite movie so we're going to call this the nickname for this is going to be the george because this is really about george cloney um but no folks seriously if you haven't had a chance to look inside there's something from every for every age and it's very exciting you're down here and embracing this beautiful main street with the hub next door all our downtown uh residents which are now at about 3200 and our goal is to build up that residency downtown to 9000 so i hope you're busting at the seams by the end of the year but thank you for your investment thank you very much