 I'm Felicia Maloney, Executive Director of the Columbia Empowerment Zone Eat, and if I could just get some of my board members to raise their hand, I would really appreciate it. Thank you. And on behalf of the distinguished roster and the Columbia Empowerment Zone Eat Board of Directors and all of our partners, we welcome you. We are delighted by your presence and honor that you joined us for the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Veranda at North Maine. The development of this site is a personal labor of love for me, and I'm humbled to bring the affordable senior housing facility to the North Columbia community. I graduated from Eau Claire High School just down the street, so this is my community. This building is a great example of the strength in partnerships and the superior outcome of shared ideals. I sincerely thank each and every partner individually and collectively for the role you played in helping us to add another staple in Columbia City Council's Envision Columbia statement. I have to give special thanks to my board of directors who unselfishly give of themselves to make the city of Columbia a great place to be. One word describes their commitment, excellence. They demonstrate excellence in their commitment to me, the mission of the Columbia Empowerment Zone, Envision Columbia, and the betterment of our city. As to the Veranda Project, the Columbia Empowerment Zone staff, the board of directors, and the integral team have demonstrated a combined commitment of excellence and the pursuit of perfection in affordable housing. The Veranda represents a result of caring more than some thought wise, risking more than some thought safe, dreaming more than some thought practical, and delivering more than most thought possible. Thank you Felicia. Good morning or good afternoon everyone. As most of you can imagine, in order to bring something like this to fruition that you run across many, many obstacles, and Felicia talked about commitment and partnership, and I just want to say thank you to the commitment of the community and the partnership in making this a reality today. I really want to thank Congressman Clyburn, Mayor Benjamin, and also Ms. Wilson, city manager. They made themselves available to solve many of the difficult problems that we had. So I really appreciate those times in making themselves available, especially the mayor whether it was in his office or a coffee in the morning. He always made himself available to do that. I also want to thank Councilman Davis, who has been a part of this from the beginning, and also Councilwoman Devine, who I understand could not be here today. But I would be remiss if I didn't really do a special thank you to the board of the Columbia Empowerment Zone. As most of you may not know, CZ does not do housing. You would not know that if you looked at this. I remember the early days when coming to talk to them about the concept of the project and they had an open mind to listen and understand how they could bring affordable senior housing to Columbia, and then we started talking about this crazy thing called low-income housing tax credits, and they were very patient. They asked all the right questions. They asked the hard questions, and we went over it several times, and I appreciate their commitment and their partnership in getting this done. Lastly, I really want to say a special thank you to Felicia and Judge McDuffie, and I know Judge could not be here today, but they are two fierce and powerful women who do not take no for an answer. So I really appreciate their partnership and spirit in working on this together, and I appreciate all of you. Thank you. Keep this moving along. It's warm. I'm Russ McCoy, co-chair of the board, and on behalf of the Mildred President McDuffie, our chair and entire board, we want to welcome you today, and thank you for joining us for this celebration of the grand opening. As Darrell said, this is a project that's been underway in discussion at least for probably eight years. We tried for a long time to figure out what would be the right business to go on this site, and we kept running into roadblocks and what we were unable to find the kind of business that would truly enhance the neighborhood. We had people that wanted to come here, but we really didn't think it would be an enhancement to the neighborhood. So the idea of housing came up, and at first, as Darrell said, well, that's not what we do, but as time went on, we realized that this is probably a great site for the brand, and we expect to have probably 75 or more residents here, which is going to add to the vibrancy of the neighborhood, and with that vibrancy, we hope we can attract more investment, because the goal here with the streetscape and everything that's going on up in this corridor, we want to do everything we can to further the enhancement of the folks, the life of the folks who live and work here. So this is a complex thing to do, as Darrell said. You would be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be, as to how complex it is to do a project like this. It takes dozens of people, dozens of folks on the team to get this done, and most of the many of them are sitting right behind me here, of course, the congressman, the mayor, city manager, city council, the folks in the integral have been fantastic. They've been the greatest folks to work with, Darrell, Lindsay, Donnell. I'm going to make a mistake if I try to name everybody, but they've just been wonderful to work with and made this process which, as I say, is extremely complicated, manageable. So we undertook this as a sort of a, well, we weren't sure how well we could make this thing work. As you can see, it's been a tremendous success. I do want to recognize our board, and they don't, they labor in anonymity, and I want to at least have you see them, so we all stand up. I probably won't be able to do this, but it's Gretchen Lambert, Mary Sparrow, also known as Ruby, Reggie Bryce, Jamaica Young, we're missing several board members, but turn around so they can see you. Thank you all. And finally, I want to recognize Felicia Maloney. This project would never have been done without Felicia's involvement in leadership. She has spent countless hours devoted to this project and to ensure its successful completion. And there's no way we can adequately recognize the effort that she has put in, but we do want to give you this, Felicia. And you all need to know that what she has done here has been nothing short of a miracle, the amount of work that she has put in. So this is a large part of Felicia's tenaciousness, resistance. Felicia, would you like to know? Let me begin by saying, telling my wife I'm going to head to her construction to take notice of the heat and not be too long. So let me, first of all, thank this board. Thank you all so much for staying together. As many of you know, this project, or this entire empowerment zone is more than ten years old. One of the few empowerment zones established around the country that is still in existence. One of the few people who had the vision to really do what empowerment zones were designed to do. And in just a few words, Mr. Mayor and members of council, I have been saying all over the country that projects like this one are signs of the greatness of the country. We don't have to make this country great again. This country is great. What we've got to do is make this country's greatness accessible and affordable by all of its citizens. And that's what this project is about. Making housing for senior citizens accessible and affordable. I was reading a little piece last night of someone talking about having something accessible. And here's a little analogy. So there's one thing for a designation on the other side of a chasm to be affordable. But if it's not a bridge or some walkway to go across, being affordable doesn't mean much if it ain't accessible. And if it is accessible, a lot of people talk about what's accessible to people, build all kinds of facilities, and then price it out of reach of everybody who needed. So we just can't have it accessible, but it must be affordable. And it can't not just be affordable. It has to be accessible. So congratulations to this board, to this mayor, to this council, to this community for making one more project accessible and affordable. Thank you. As I always have, I will take the lead from Congressman Claver and I will keep it brief in this heat. It's an exciting day to be in North Columbia, to be in 29203. If we think of the history of what we've been trying to do on this site for a number of years, late night meetings, some very frank conversations with our neighbors and other stakeholders out here, and to see a vision finally come into fruition right here on this site because of the collective acts of the entire community, it's a big deal and it's a big day here in North Columbia. I do want to thank all the same people that Congressman Clyburn congratulated and thanked in no particular order, but this incredible Empowerment Zone Board. The CEC Inc. is doing amazing work right here in Columbia, South Carolina, that's not happening anywhere else in this country. It's important to note that, that post the establishment of Empowerment Zones and then the closing of Empowerment Zones, this is one of the only places, if not the only place in the entire country, that's pivoted and decided still to be a force for good to make great things happen here in our community. We're so thankful to this entire board and very much thankful to Felicia for her incredible leadership. Felicia just won't go away, y'all. If she wants it, she wants it, she's going to make it happen, hook up crooks, she's going to make something happen and it's going to happen for the betterment of this community. So I want to thank her and thank of course all the team, Teresa Wilson and her entire staff up and down for making this happen. You can't make things happen without having great partners. Now we're going to hear, we're heard from Darrell, we're going to hear from Egbert Perry, but Integral Group is a first class organization working across this country to deliver high quality housing to people across America and to have them putting up a marquee project here in 29203 is a big deal for Columbia and hope it's not the last one. We need to find more opportunities to do more together with this incredible organization. I do want you, as you leave here, and as some of you will probably call me later on fussing about the axles or your tires or something because of the construction along North Main Street to understand that this is a piece of the puzzle. This is one piece of the puzzle. As we look at the redevelopment that so many of you have asked for, Mr. Davis has so ably led to come here to North Main Street and North Columbia for so many years. We're looking at a combination of tiger grant funding that Mr. Clyburn advocated for local penny dollars that we're all contributing through the penny, state money and city money, significant funding that Mr. Davis has procured for a higher part across the street. Investments in Greenview Park and Earl Wood Park. This is a part of a strategy. Pair funding and map funding allowing people to weatherize their homes and stay in their homes. A well over a million dollars of CDBG funds and others dedicated those programs. A lot's happening out here and it's because of a collaborative approach we're all doing together that requires leadership. I want to thank again our staff. I want to thank again Mr. Davis and the others for making the fantastic things happen out here in 29203. I've spent the majority of my adult life from law school to marry my beautiful wife to birthing our babies here in 29203 and it's amazing to see what's happening here and we can't wait to see so much more happen because of the leadership of those of you right in front of us. Thank you, may God bless you. This project is a result of the seed that Congressman Clyburn planted and brought to Columbia. Everyone that has been receiving credit right now rightly deserves it. Felicia, the leader, the staff and the community that decided that they were going to partner with this project and it wasn't a slam dome. I think we did the right thing. We had discussions and we're bold enough to get on a bus and go to Atlanta and look at the project, the product and that is the selling point to know what you're getting and making sure that it meets the needs of the community. One of the promises of the Empowerment Zone was and still is to make lives better. I wish you were with me yesterday. I was summoned to City Hall by a senior citizen. They had a very frank discussion with me about affordable senior housing and that is real, not just across this country but here in Columbia and so this project as I was asked and responded to meets that need but it's only one seat and we're totally committed to making sure that this corridor lives up to the promise and this is an example. This product is an example of what is expected in terms of quality and what is expected in terms of meeting the needs of the people who live here and meeting the needs of the people who will travel this corridor. Quality products, quality lifestyles and a quality safe place to live and so we thank everybody for their help on this and that help will continue because the promise and the needs of this area as the mayor has stated continues and we're going to continue to be partners in that and we can't do it without you so thank you and we appreciate you. Good afternoon. What another great, great day for North Columbia. I cannot begin to tell you what an absolute genuine pleasure it is for me to represent my colleagues on Michigan County Council and the citizens that we serve. You know, North Columbia is very dear to me. It's been a part of the district that I represent for my entire time as a county council member and I tell you it is my prior joy. You know, my involvement in this project was kind of interesting. You know, everybody talked about Felicia. Felicia shot me an email and said, we need some help. We got a little gap. Can y'all help us with it? So I saw her about, you know, a day later, you know, no, the same day as a matter of fact, later the same day she go, did you get my email? I said, yes ma'am, I'm working on it. Then I saw about two days later that's when she saw me again and I closed. Y'all moving on it now? So I knew right away that I needed to get my colleagues really involved and do something here. So it's so important to understand the significant advantages of collaborating and having partnerships. And so indeed, I asked my colleagues to support this project. Give Felicia what she asked for. Can I tell you about, you know, it was both my colleagues agreed to that. Partnership collaboration. And we'll continue to do that as we've done with North Maine in terms of streetscaping and so forth. And it's, like I said, another great day for North Columbia. But believe me, there are many, many coming. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Egbert Perry and I'm probably the person least deserving to be standing in front of you today because everybody else up here actually did something. I'm the chairman and CEO of the integral group. And so we are the developers for the project. And we consider ourselves and still do fortunate, honored and privileged to be here to have had the opportunity to partner with you. You heard all of the partnership participants and any type of project that's done in urban communities represents a public-private partnership. Whether you actually have a public-private partnership agreement or not, if you're doing it properly, then you should be partnering with the public sector, the community and all of the stakeholders that are committed to good outcomes. So our company is 26 years old and we are committed to creating great communities for people across a broad range of incomes and that's what we've done for those 26 years. I said I'm the least deserving to be up here because, Mr. Mayor, thank you for your leadership, vision and support. And I hope you all recognize that there was one woman so far and all these men and who do you think led it? Okay, so that speaks for itself. But I am standing here but I'm very clear that the integral group is a lot of people, 300 people in the organization and the people who actually did the work made this happen here and I want to single out some of them. So the president of Integrals Community Development operation is Vicky Lundy-Willbarn. Vicky, where are you? Oh, she's in the back, back there. You heard from Darrell who heads up the senior division of the company and Darrell looks to Lindsay, Trey and Donnell as three individuals on the development team and then we have a whole management team that will manage the community in life moving forward. And so all of these people and everyone in Atlanta want to say thank you very much again for the privilege and the opportunity to participate in this project and we hope it is the first of more to come. Thank you very much. Congressman, mayor, council members, what a privilege it is to be here on a beautiful day in South Carolina. My name is John Tyler. I'm from SC Housing. I am not Venita Shropshire. In her absence she sends her very warm greetings and I think we can receive those in an even warmer fashion. What a beautiful transformation to a beloved area of Columbia. The vision of our agency, SC Housing is very important and near and dear to I think all of us out here today to bring safe, opportunities for safe, decent and affordable housing for all South Carolinians. That vision, that mission is a daunting task. However, it is much easier to fulfill with wonderful partners and on this development, on this project there have been so many wonderful partners. Whether it was the Columbia Empowerment Zone, the integral group, the city of Columbia, the county, the contractors who all remain committed to making this happen and the very folks who cheered it on every step of the way. So Felicia, thank you for dreaming. Thank you to all of you for caring and congratulations on delivering a beautiful place to call home. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Ty Zeigler. I'm here on behalf of the Hyatt Park and Kenan Terrace neighborhoods. First I'd like to say welcome to our neighborhoods. Thank you all for coming. We're excited about this project here. I really want to thank the people everybody has already thanked, but especially the Columbia Empowerment Zone, the integral group, and the mayor and the council for making this project a reality. We're excited about having affordable, inclusive housing here in North Columbia. We're excited about the activity this project will bring to the area. And we look forward to being a great neighbor to a building and a group that's going to help make our neighborhood prosperous and affordable. Thank you all for coming. Good afternoon. So I'm the last speaker I think before we can get out of this heat and go inside and see what everyone wants to see. So I'll be brief. I know it's already been said what a special occasion today is as we celebrate the grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony of the Veranda at North Main. It's the city's vision statement which is entitled Envision Columbia. The overall goal of the mayor and city council members with Envision Columbia is that by 2036 Columbia has captured the new American dream. While embracing our 250 year rich history we enthusiastically welcome the future. So quite frankly this is part of that future. Some of the two of the focus areas that the council has are empowering our residents in enhancing Columbia's neighborhoods and so that represents all that the Veranda at North Main is. The Veranda at North Main has set a visionary standard for affordable housing in Columbia. Affordable housing helps to build stronger more viable neighborhoods as we know and it is also a catalyst for changing the perception of what affordable housing can be and the positive impact it can have on our community. So I want to thank the government's own Felicia, the board members there, our mayor, our city council for their vision and all the other partners who have made this a reality including the integral group. They've all contributed to make this dream of affordable housing a reality for Columbia South Carolina residents. We will create our desired future and we will continue our success. With that is now my honor and pleasure to invite all of our speakers as well as representatives from our partner agencies and community leaders for the official ribbon cutting ceremony.