 Hi, everyone. This is Melissa Wiley and I'm here with Anas Davis and Corrine Delaney and we are so excited to share with you all the story of one of Florida's fascinating stories and how historic preservation, urban planning and community development is revitalizing a historic city. So I want to share a little bit about the other folks on the panel with me today. We have Corrine Delaney who is an urban planner and the city planner for the city of Opalaca, the Interim CRA Manager at Opalaca Community Redevelopment Agency and the Main Street Opalaca Executive Director. He has experience working with multiple municipalities, organizations and nonprofit entities. Previously he worked with the city of Maramar as a city planner that assisted in the rewriting of their land development regulations and as an urban planner with Liberia Economic and Social Development. Corrine is well versed in urban development but also in community engagement and participation. He is a graduate of the Florida State University, completed the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Miami program. The Urban Land Institute's Leadership Institute program is a member of the Florida State University chapter of Progressive Black Men and also I am pleased to say a member of the Florida Trust Board of Directors. Anas Davis is a senior planner with Alfred Benchin Company. He is a civic activist dedicated to improving communities and is also the Vice President of Membership and Outreach for the Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association. He is also a Florida Trust for Historic Preservation Trustee. He serves as our treasurer and our chair for the 11 to Save Committee. He is a groundwork Jacksonville board member, author of the award-winning books Reclaiming Jacksonville, Coen Brothers, The Big Store and Images of Modern America Jacksonville and co-founder of online media publications The Jackson Mag and Modern Cities. So we're so excited to have those folks with us today and I just want to let you know really quick about the Florida Trust. We are Florida statewide preservation nonprofit based in Tallahassee and my name is Melissa Wiley and I'm the CEO and president of our organization. I'm happy to do that. Just a little bit more about me. Actually, interestingly, Ennis and Corrine and I are all actually natives of Florida. We were all born here which can be a little unique. There's a lot of transplants to Florida but we are all native Floridians which is pretty cool. I was born in Clearwater, Florida and that's the image that you can see the top left there is a picture historic postcard of Clearwater. It was originally the home of the Toko Vega people and around 1835 the United States Army began construction of Fort Harrison as an outpost during some little wars. It was on a bluff overlooking Clearwater Harbor in an area known today as Harbor Oaks and that's where my dad grew up. His house was built around 1950 and that area is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The middle picture there is a picture of myself and my sister and my cousin in front of that house in Clearwater and I'm sharing that with you guys because this is the place where I learned of the importance of the built environment and how it can share our stories and if we lose these places we can also lose our abilities to connect and tell these stories in the same way. When my grandmother passed away when I was young the house was sold and demolished and listening to my father talk I grew up feeling like a double loss from losing my grandmother and losing the house. So this is the place that taught me the power of our built environment to share our stories and our history which has powered me through my career and I think it's also a kind of underlying theme for the story of Ovalaca as well. So before we start speaking specifically about Ovalaca I wanted to set up this idea of what we're talking about here in Florida at this time. To me this time period was like Florida and living the dream like people were coming to Florida from everywhere you might want to imagine as long as they had money they had the ability to create these amazing dreamscapes of anything they wanted. So the picture here is the Cautison which was built by John and Mabel Ringling in Sarasota in 1924. Mabel wanted a home in the Venetian Gothic style of the Palazzo in Venice Italy and there was no reason that she couldn't make that a reality so they built this home in Sarasota and the Sarasota Bay became her grand canal so they're just living the dream there in Sarasota. Also living the dream were the railroad barons who came to Florida and there was nothing stopping those folks from making Florida into their own little wonderland or architectural dreams. First up you see the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine that was done by Henry Flagler who headed the Florida East Coast Railway and he completed the overseas railroad connecting the entire east coast of Florida from Jacksonville to Key West so it was quite a feat on a single railroad system. He saw Florida's tourism potential and in 1888 built the Hotel Ponce de Leon. It was the first in a series of luxury resorts along Florida's east coast so we're bringing people now to experience the wandering dreams that is Florida and as you can see the architecture is a masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance architecture and the first major port in place concrete building the United States. The next image is the Tampa Bay Hotel which is in Tampa Florida and that was done by Henry Plant. His plant investment company acquired existing rail lines and laid new track into Central and Western Florida. He wanted to connect railroads with ports to feed a tourism boom that he also saw happening in Florida. Naturally he wanted his empire to have a palace and that palace was the Tampa Bay Hotel. It was designed to surpass all other Grand Winter resorts with ornate Victorian gender bread and topped by Moorish minarets domes and cupolas. Interestingly both of these buildings still exist in Florida and they're both part of universities that have sought to restore and continue to utilize these buildings so the Hotel Ponce de Leon is part of Flagler University and the Tampa Bay Hotel is part of the University of Tampa. So another really amazing feat architectural feat an example of dreaming of Florida is Opalaca and what we're seeing here is that Florida really is a place where rich people can come to create whatever they dream of and before we get into the details too much of Opalaca I wanted to thank Matt Marino who wrote a story for our preservationist magazine that really delved into the history of Opalaca. I shared a lot of a lot of his insight will be shared in this presentation so thank you Matt for all your research. So perhaps the dreamiest of the dreamers of people who came to Florida to create alternate realities was Glenn Curtis and he was an aviation pioneer who was called the fastest man in the world because in 1907 he hit 136.3 miles per hour on a self-built motorcycle cruising down Orman Beach which is also in Florida. He founded the Curtis airplane and motor company in 1910 which was the first U.S. licensed aircraft manufacturer sold the first U.S. private aircraft before becoming the world's largest aviation company. He actually bought out the Wright brothers and formed the Curtis Wright Corporation invented the seaplane airboat and aircar built the first U.S. Navy aircraft and trained the Navy's first two pilots. So eventually Curtis grew to be a land developer and his eyes settled on South Florida onto Cuesta and later Seminole lands was a place called Opa Tisha Waka Laka or high ground amid the swamp on which there is a camping place and that is the place that he would build his dream city. So to me Opa Laka stands as one of Florida's most fascinating cities. It has one of the largest if not the largest collection of Morse revival architecture in America. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a thematic resource area. It was dreamed as a North African fantasy land with dazzling central building and main street functioning as an open market bazaar and I can't even count how many minarets there must have been up in Opa Laka back in the day. It was said to have been inspired by a thousand and one Arabian nights the stories and traveling there was meant to be like traveling to a different place outside of America a kind of a dream land. So in 1927 when seaboard airlines Orange Blossom special arrived a band of horsemen and Arabian themed garb halted the great iron horse with a proclamation from the Grand Vizier of the Empire of Opa Laka who who was actually J. Carl Adams a half brother and investor in Opa Laka with Curtis. In this event marked the height of the city's popularity when it was embodying the dream it was advertised to be and the the picture on the left there is obviously the cover of Arabian nights and the image on the right is that train station in Opa Laka. So Opa Tissue Waka Laka was swallowed up by a hundred and twenty thousand acre purchase by the Curtis Bright Corporation which carved from its holding three cities High Leia then then country club of states now Miami Springs and then the final development of Missouri cattle rancher James Bright and Curtis which was Opa Laka. The theme of Opa Laka carried on with street names like Salton, Alibaba, Sherozad, Aladdin and Sesame. Curtis and architect Bernard Mueller built 105 buildings with an array of domes, minarets and outside staircases. By the time Curtis's dream was realized Opa Laka was a self-contained city with a hotel, zoo, golf course, archery club, swimming pool, airport and train station. So boomtown was a different boomtown Opa Laka was a different kind of boomtown. I think there was two key things that differentiated it from other boomtowns in Florida. Funded by the aviation Florida fortunes and built amidst the dizzying speculation of Florida's land boom, Opa Laka has two things that is different. One is its reliance on advertisements. So here's a few examples of that really interesting vintage advertising that the city was using to get people to come there. So they wanted visitors, they wanted tourists, they wanted folks to come and live there as well. So the town was platted to entice the seaboard rail line. Free buses brought visitors and from nearby Miami and potential residents were tempted with all those perks. We talked about archery ranges, pools, a zoo and there was also adequate job opportunities at the local aero car plant and other businesses that they projected being a part of Opa Laka. The other piece of what made Opa Laka different was its connection with the aviation industry. Obviously with Curtis's history, this was going to be a place that was defined by aviation, which was his true passion. So an airfield for the Florida aviation camp opened in 1927. A dirigible mooring mass was added soon after that. What was then called Glen Curtis Field would grow into Miami Municipal Airport and very interestingly in 1937, Amelia Earhart continued her infamous flight from that municipal airport. On July 2nd, obviously Earhart and her navigator disappeared over the Pacific. So Opa Laka's airport, excuse me, yeah municipal airport was then changed to Earhart Field in her honor. Another tie to the aviation industry was Curtis donated land for a Naval Reserve Air Base. By December 1944, then called Navy Municipal and South Field number two, it was the second largest naval air training station in the United States and played a crucial role in World War II. By 1967, Opa Laka was the busiest airport in the country. Opa Laka's aviation facilities were central in the CIA's 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, the Bay of Pigs invasion and Cuban Missile Crisis, Hurricane Andrew recovery efforts and even 9-11, as many of you may know, the two hijackers trained at the airport 727 air simulator. The Blamp Hangar even housed Cuban refugees during the Merrill boat lift and then interestingly it was blown for the climax of the 1995 motion picture bad boys. I'm sure we all remember that. So unfortunately, the sort of dream of Opa Laka did not last in its heyday for very long. It was devastated by the land boom crash in Florida, which began after an unusually cold winter in 1925, which was followed by an extremely hot summer. So the worst of both worlds there. Rents started to skyrocket. People were letters back home saying maybe this isn't the greatest place to come to. And then of course, you had the Great Depression and all the economics hardships that were going to be a result of that. So people began to wonder if Florida was really a heaven on earth. So the city was devastated by the Great Miami Hurricane in 1926, which further added to the struggles and that Navy base, which was a really great economic driver, that expansion continued unchecked and that decimated the native hammock that Curtis worked to preserve along with over 100 of those more structures that were originally built as part of the city. From another economic viewpoint, a little further down the road, the naval base closed and the city began to experience a decline. So there has been several years where these buildings have been many of them empty. And today, Opa Laka is one of Miami's historically African-American communities working to grow back into a second economic growth period in a community development growth period. Opa Laka actually became the first community in the United States to commemorate our first African-American president by renaming a mile long section of Purvis Avenue from Oriental Boulevard to Alibaba Avenue, Barack Obama Avenue on February 17th of 2009. So that's a little bit about the unique history that has brought this unique example of Florida to us. And now I'm going to turn it over to Corrine Delaney, who's going to tell us a little bit more about where we are. Thank you. So a little bit of background with my involvement with preservation, especially in regards to helping the great city of Opa Laka revitalize itself, is I come from a background of preservationists, but also developers. My family for years were restoring homes, building new homes, churches and schools dating back to the 1800s in rural Alabama, Mississippi. So we come from a long line of developers and individuals that had extensive knowledge in restoration and new construction projects. So as we look forward in, you know, today's reality with the restoration of Opa Laka, you know, this is something that has been a passion of mine. This is something that, you know, I've been able to look back at my heritage and at my family's history as something to lean on, you know, in my work with preservation. And moving towards that conversation, you know, Opa Laka is a city that has great potential. It has great history. As Melissa mentioned, you know, Opa Laka was built back in 1926 as a dream of aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis to be a pretty much an oasis of South Florida as a means to create an environment where, you know, individuals can come, live, work and play a career that was almost like a dream from the Moors architecture to the zoos to the shopping complex in downtown, you know, the historic downtown that we're actually working to revitalize at this time. Opa Laka was a location unlike anywhere else in the world. Even today, with our largest collection of Moors architecture in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the airport, which was kind of its guiding light from the very onset, which of course, you know, the founder of our city was one of the aviation, one of aviation's initial pioneers. And it was pretty much just testing ground for his early, earlier planes such as the Curtis Jenny. So, you know, in our work, we want to make sure that we restore a lot of those buildings. One of our challenges has been ensuring that the homes that have been constructed, constructed, which are about 80 or so homes are afforded opportunities for redevelopment. We'd have had conversations with the state as well as the federal government in regards to securing potential grants and loan programs to be able to afford that to our residents living in those homes. In regards to our other historic structures, our historic city hall is actually slated for completion during next year's, I believe it is a year 96 anniversary. So, we're very excited about that. We also have our historic train station, which we'll be actually activating at the end of this year during Art Basel as a holistic art complex with one of our partnering organizations within the city, the Oplaka CDC. So, we're excited about the work that we're doing in restoring our great city. And we want to ensure that, you know, we have all the participants available have our residents be a part of our community partners be able to pour into the opportunities to assist us in the revitalization. This has been an undertaking that I've been very proud to be a part of. It's something that I hold near and dear as someone that has grown up in the area. And I think that, you know, with the right team that we have with our city manager, Mr. Darwin Williams, with our assistant city managers, Mr. Mecca Lawson, and Mr. George Ellis, and you know, the various departments at our city, we have the right team in place right now as well as our elected officials to really move this city forward in regards to our restoration work. And that goes from our mayor, Ms. Veronica Williams, Vice Mayor John Taylor, our commissioners Chris Davis, Adrian Dominguez, and commissioners Dr. Charlene Bass. All of us are really working hard to make sure that we can continue our fight to have our city back to its former glory. And we definitely can make sure that that happens in a timely fashion. So, I'm excited that we're actually able to present this in a national format. And I know that we're ready and we're primed to move forward. And of course, if there's any other assistance out there, we're definitely more than willing to accept it. And we know that, you know, there are cities across the country that, you know, we love to lean on each other for our stories and experiences. We're definitely using the experience of other communities to help us move forward. And we also want to be, you know, a guiding light to other cities that have similar challenges in order to continue our preservation work. So once again, thank you all for this opportunity. And I'm looking forward to, you know, wherever else we have moving forward. So, thank you. Thanks, Corianne. Appreciate that. And glad to see all the work that's being conducted in Opalaka. So as I get started, one of the things I like to do is always pay homage to my ancestors. I am a sixth-generation Floridian and I'm a Gulligichi descendant. And, you know, with that being said, without the sacrifices of my ancestors, I wouldn't have the opportunity to present in front of you today. And for those of you who may not know what Gulligichi means, it is basically descendants of Africans that were enslaved in the Low Country, basically from Wilmington, North Carolina, South to St. John's County, Florida, and about 30 miles inland. As we move forward, as I jumped into this, one of the things that noted writer and activist James Baldwin has been quoted as saying is that great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us unconsciously controlled by it. History is literally present in all that we do. Acknowledging that fact that history is literally present in all that we do, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 to Save program is designed to increase the public's awareness of the urgent need to save Florida's historic resources and to empower local preservationists and preservation groups in the efforts to preserve Florida's rich history. The Florida's Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 to Save list spotlights the most threatened historic properties in the state and drives the Florida Trust education initiatives and activation initiatives for the year ahead. So each year the Florida Trust analysis's 11 to save program is part of its annual conference. Announced in July, this year's list represents endangered resources and properties in Alachua, Duval, Escambia, Gaddison, Lee, Leon, Monroe, Palm Beach, Polk, and Putnam counties covering hundreds of years of history and a variety of cultural resources. Inclusion to this list is a starting point for accuracy and education efforts and is intended to be a part of a collaborative effort to identify custom solutions for each of the properties. Also the Florida Trust maintains a partnership with Holly Baker, who is the assistant producer of Florida Frontiers, the weekly radio magazine of the Florida Historical Society, to share the story of each 11 to save site as well as promote and bring more awareness to the 11 to save program on a consistent and regular basis. In addition, I'd like to share news about an exciting program and expansion of this 11 to save program. Last November, the Florida Trust Board of Directors announced the creation of a 11 to save fund and provided initial seed donation to begin support, financial support for some of the most threatened historic resources within our state. The fund is a response to needs that we have seen in our 11 to save program and reflect our desire to further support and the assistance that we provide to each of the 11 to save sites. So we are excited to be able to do more to preserve these historic resources because they really showcase how historic preservation can be a part of building the stronger, healthier community throughout our entire state. This fund is intended to provide tangible and targeted assistance to each of the 11 to save properties throughout the state. And so over the past year, the 11 to save committee has worked to establish a process for rolling this program out. Launched this fall, we do anticipate awarding the first site later this month. Ongoing work in Cosmo serves as an example of a tangible and targeted assistance that we hope that we can provide to 11 to save sites. A 2020 11 to save site Cosmo is a community that was established at the end of the Civil War by former enslaved who were settled along the St. John's River, surviving by hunting, fishing, farming, crabbing, and harvesting oysters. Over the course of the 20th century, sprawl development would engulf most of this once rural community and landscape in response to Cosmo Preservation Association was formed to raise awareness about their community and the threats to its continued survival. So as a part of collective efforts with the National Park Service, the city of Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Gulligichi Nation CDC, the Gulligichi Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, and the Cosmo community, the trust has worked to help plan, dig up public history, and create and work on historic preservation strategies in support of the community. So this has included raising public awareness through the 11 to save program, conducting oral history interviews with community elders, supporting the designation of the community cemetery to the National Register of Historic Places, and developing interpretive heritage markers in a new community heritage park that was dedicated this past March. Believing in the need to raise awareness for its restoration and rehabilitation, the Opalaka Administration Building in City Hall was added to the 11 to save program in 2021. As has been mentioned already, Opalaka was initially developed by Glenn Curtis, who was known by many as the father of naval aviation during the 1920s for the land boom. At the heart of the community, the Opalaka Administration Building served as the headquarters for the development and sales company created by Curtis. Described as an anchor of the new city and completed in 1926, it was also the flagship in the center of town that would arrow out to other structures within city limits. It later became known as Opalaka City Hall and was eventually placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. A decade ago, this building was shuttered due to mold infestation. At the time, a renovation project had started, but due to lack of funds, the project was put on indefinite hold. As time has gone on, the stately structures continue to deteriorate, which resulted in the building being included on the 11 to save program and the growing relationship that we now have with the city of Opalaka and the Florida Trust. As an urban planner who was raised in a historically excluded community and who also has a passion for working in historically excluded communities, I'm a huge believer in the work that is currently on our way in Opalaka, as it is a form of what I would call width intrification. In contrast to gentrification, width intrification basically refers to revitalization that is driven by people that are already living and working within the community. It means identifying assets in the community, bringing them together of the common objectives, raising the value of that place from within at a pace that is appropriate for revitalization of the existing community as opposed to displacing that existing community. So in this initiative, residents in the business community actually take a lead in role in revitalization rather than newcomers or outside developers telling the community what they need, ultimately pricing them out in the process. So to successfully combat gentrification, we all must understand that every place has a significant historical story to tell if we are willing to find it. As such, the toolbox of strategies used to address economic development while limiting the negative impacts of displacement and preservation challenges will all be unique to each specific community. For example, Chicago's Bronzeville is a great role model for communities looking at ways to place keep their culture while also revitalizing. And established in 1825, Tallahassee's French town, which is one of the oldest historic African-American communities in the state, is home to sets for examples of in and field affordable housing developments. And then there are Main Street programs such as Main Street and College Park, Georgia, and the Deuses and St. Pete, which are good examples of community commercial revitalization efforts in manners that have retained that community's heritage and culture. So I'm happy to hear and know that Opalaka is also a Main Street program. And so they tend to say that access to information is power. So as a believer of that term and the work that is underway in Opalaka, I like to end this part of the presentation with another with-intrification example in hopes of spreading innovative strategies that can fuel revitalization and preservation while also retaining a community's culture across the country. So in recent years, Jacksonville's E-Side has launched an aggressive with-intrification initiative to protect that community's character and unique sense of place as development pressure encroaches throughout its borders. Planted in 1869, the E-Side is a community that attracted freed men and freed women with employment opportunities at nearby sawmills and docks along the St. John's River. Initially, sparsely development community, it urbanized after 1901 as the Jacksonville area grew into Florida's first large major urban center and the largest urban center within the Gullagiji Cultural Heritage Corridor. Eventually, the E-Side would fall into economic decline due to a variety of factors, including being decimated by multiple expressways, having its economic base ripped apart by desegregation, as well as damage from what I refer to as the rebellion of 1969. Some people will call that the E-Side riots of 1969, as well as a legacy of redlining. Despite suffering the negative impacts of discriminatory public policies and investments, today it's still a largely intact community characterized by dense rows of late 19th century frame shotgun housing, historic churches, and mixed-use commercial buildings, as well as a network of interesting early 20th century industrial structures. However, the fate in the neighborhood does face several challenges. Adjacent to downtown and the sports and entertainment district, several in-field development projects and initiatives are already under construction or proposed, which have led to the demolition of significant cultural heritage sites that are considered to be important to residents within the community. So limiting displacement and erasure of that culture, while in addition providing opportunities for economic development, affordable housing, and historic preservation and quality and access to healthy foods and economic infrastructure, all of these are major issues that the community has felt has needed to be addressed to make sure that residents living there today are a part of that vibrant future. So as Charlie Chisholm once said, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair, that's pretty much what the E-side with it with interification strategies have focused on. So with that in mind, with interification also involves revamping the public policies to support a community's needs and long-term vision, even if that community-led approach may not be considered to be viewed as a traditional way of doing things in the preservation world, as well as the planning and economic development world. So the designation of a national registered historic district is one approach that is being taken there. And this is intended to honor its heritage, as well as provide residents with equitable access to federal tax credits and grant programs without property right restrictions that are associated with the city's local historic district destinations that generally have led to displacement and gentrification in other communities within the same region. Residents will also have an opportunity to learn more in events when there are developments that call for a demolition of what people believe are culturally significant resources within that community. And this is a great example of if they don't give you a seat at the table, you bring your folding chair. A second public policy modification as underway also involves the creation of a culturally appropriate zone and overlay. And in short, the goal of this overlay is intended to modify zone policies through better utilization of setbacks, maximum lot widths, building heights, for example, things that will help encourage and protect affordable housing, protect the historic built environment and community legacy, but God in higher density makes use infill development into places that are both complementary for the community and market and supported by the market. In addition, collaboration outside of traditional planning has also been critical. Affordable housing and displacement are current issues in that community that can't wait for a plan of studies or policy changes to take place. So thus, a restore and repair home program has been established to support long-term residents and making improvements to their properties, ensuring that families can remain and save stable housing now and into the future. This program also sources bits from contractors who are based in the general areas surrounding neighborhoods, which also serves as an additional economic development mechanism for BIPOC and women on contractors and construction workers, basically leading to that economic dollar recycling within the community. Project Boots is another program that is underway and is intended to increase home ownership, which is essential to creating generational wealth. So this program basically provides down payment assistance and home ownership training. Upon successful completion of this 12-month program, participants are then able to purchase a new home within the community on existing vacant lots. And all this is designed to fit within the proposed zoning overlay standards. And again, this is just an opportunity for this community to preserve its cultural heritage since the scale in place, but also taking advantage of economic opportunities that lead to the recycling of the dollar within its borders. And so last but not least, finally, economic worldly access to healthy foods within the community was also a big issue in this strategy that is currently being tackled within that with Intrification and Redevelopment Toolbox. So built in 1913, the dev store, which is pictured here, was a long-time market that closed in 2001. And so intended to promote culture and history via adaptive reuse and eradicate the community's food desert status, this centrally located building is now being rehabilitated to house a non-profit grocery market on the first floor, as well as a financial services hub and community center on the second floor. So in the end, as I turn this back over to Melissa, here's my contact information. I would hope that I'm more than happy to answer any questions that anyone may have, so you can contact me via email or through a network of social media outlets or on our website at TheJacksonMag.com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both to Cori and Ennis for sharing your presentations. I really appreciated that and learned a lot from it. And I did have a few follow-up questions for you guys, if you don't mind, and you have a little bit of time to continue with us today. I was wondering if you could share a little bit of your thoughts around how like adding businesses and Ennis and your withinification examples you included, like putting food grocery options into the neighborhood. How could your examples and maybe help with Obalaca as they're thinking through their strategy going forward? Well, I think Obalaca has already tackled some of those examples. When I think about commercial revitalization, especially within a historic African American communities, some of the most successful examples are those communities that have become a part of the Main Street program. And really what I like about the Main Street program is it helps a community kind of self-organize and find ways to brand and promote its own legacy and story, which is very important when you're talking about economic development that's really driven by a world where places have a unique sense of place and they're taking advantage of that. And so I think Obalaca is in the beginning stages of that, but within my presentation, I mentioned the Deuses of St. Pete College Park in Georgia, those are two great examples of success that has occurred. I think Obalaca also, given its history, has a very unique opportunity to leverage existing policies that, quite frankly, many African American communities have just not had the general knowledge about to take advantage of the policies. I think when we talk about preservation in general, I think we have to also accept the knowledge that this whole industry was pretty much set up during segregation in Georgia, what meant initially for African American communities. With that being said, there are programs such as being designated as a national registered district, historic district, that does bring opportunities for additional financial resources for the preservation of structure. So I know that with the trust, I know that Obalaca is looking at ways to designate more properties within its boundaries to the national registered historic places and being able to take advantage of some of those resources that will help with their revitalization program initiatives. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that Obalaca has done so much to protect and capitalize that really, truly unique sense of place that it has. It's really one of a kind. Both of you guys, what do you think about being listed on the 11 to save? We had some conversations with other partners like the University of Florida. Do you want to talk about at all any of that work that the partnerships we have sort of started and are going to continue going forward? Yeah, I think a big positive of the 11 to save program is the awareness that it brings to potential sites and communities throughout the state. That awareness plays a big role in securing additional funds or additional resources to help with various initiatives. So I think the UF Historic Preservation Program going to assist with historic resources survey for the community, which hopefully one day will lead to more properties being able to national register. That comes out of that. Also, you know, think, you know, the City Hall being able to secure additional 500,000 through the recent African American cultural and historical grant program is another example of just when that awareness comes out of there, it's just opportunities that can lead to things that may have been obstacles within a community. Those solutions not only starting to arrive at a snowball in a way that revitalization happens in a much faster and quicker pace. And it's my last question for you. If you want to talk about it a little bit, is how can you see with intrification and urban planning and historic preservation kind of coming together in that sweet spot for the future of OBOC? And you may have talked about some of those tactics already, but are there any other sort of overarching themes you'd like to hit on? Well, I think the overall theme is that there's no one solution or one trick pony type way of doing things. It's a network of several things that come together to protect a community's legacy and story and allow for that legacy and story to also grow from economic development perspective for the people within that community. So, you know, all together, I would just wrap it up again and say to get to where Opalock is going. It's got a history. Every place has a history. Every place has a story. There are tools that can be used to dig that history out to better promote that history. The Main Street program is a great way of doing that and the organization that it helps with local businesses within the community. From a planning perspective, being able to look at ways to make sure that Zonan actually works for that community is another way and Zonan policy is also kind of supporting the market, but kind of guiding the market in a way that protects the community is very important. And, you know, just awareness and going back to access to information is power. So, the more that we can engage multicultural and community and culture and spread that information around, the better the opportunity we have to see the development of truly vibrant places where all segments and parts of society are economically benefited and included in that revitalization process. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks guys. I'm so glad you were able to join us in the conversation about Opalock and telling this story with everyone. I think a lot of times people think that Florida doesn't, I'm sure you hear this, but Florida doesn't really have history. We're just we were like born when Walt Disney came and that's not the truth at all. So, I'm very excited that we have this sort of national platform to share some of Florida's really cool special stories. So, thank you. Thank you.