 Good morning everyone. My name is Kim Jameson-Crafton and I'm the President of Historic Columbia's Board of Trustees. On behalf of the board and I want to take a moment and recognize some of our board members that are here. Roderick Schriver, Laura Folline, Mary Elam, thank you all for being here, as well as Patrick Cleary, President of Palladium Society. We welcome you to the new Boyd Foundation Horticultural Center. We stand on a four-acre site that has held one of Columbia's signature landmarks, the Hampton Preston Mansion and Gardens, since 1818. Today this site is a cornerstone of Columbia's Robert Mills Historic Garden District. The history of this place is significant and its future is bright due to the completion of the Boyd Foundation Horticultural Center. To tell you more about what this building means for Historic Columbia, I invite Robin Waits, my dear friend and Executive Director of Historic Columbia to the podium. Good morning. Exciting day. Anyone can see just by walking through these doors or walking around the block or in the front gates that the Boyd Foundation Horticultural Center is a really stunning addition to the landscape of this site, but not just to this site, really to Columbia more broadly. But why is it important to Historic Columbia? So it completes a major component of a cultural landscape master plan that we adopted in 2006, and it was designed that cultural landscape master plan was designed to do three things. The first was to guide the establishment of period appropriate gardens across the 14 acres and six sites that are managed by Historic Columbia. That plan also established consecutive links between these sites that allows us to showcase 200 years of landscape history all within this district. And then the third is to brand this neighborhood the Robert Mills District as the Robert Mills Garden District. Historically the Hampton Preston site was the finest garden in the region in the 1850s. In addition to having a unique design and plants from all over the world, a greenhouse also stood in this location. The Boyd Foundation Horticultural Center support allows us to return this corner of the property to its historic, but also allows us to build a much more robust future. This aspect of our work will enable us to do the following. Enhance the working capacity of our grounds team who tends to these 14 acres across our campus, and Keith Mearns is standing there hiding in the back because he likes plants and not people. Not really. Not really. He likes people too. It'll provide us new opportunities for plant propagation both in this building as well as the nursery that stands just east of here. And it offers a new space for programming, for events, for special projects, bringing people not only to the site but to the greenhouse as well. And we, I tell you, we have been really dreaming of this moment since 2006. And I know that others were likely envisioning this possibility before us. For members of our past and current board, for those who served on our garden steering committees, volunteers who work in the gardens, and again, the staff who stayed the course until we got this done. I'm really grateful to have worked with each person who helped to bring this project to fruition, but especially to Susan Boyd, who has been on our garden steering committee since 2007, and really enabled this to become a reality. Thank y'all. Just like Robin said, while each member of the garden steering committee was invaluable to the 2006 cultural landscape master plan, there was one member of that committee who had the resources and the vision to make a plan a reality. Susan Boyd through the Boyd Foundation. The Boyd Foundation's immense generosity is felt throughout the Columbia, felt throughout Columbia and the Foundation's projects. But the Hampton Preston site has been truly transformed by their donations. A $1.5 million investment in this site's building and grounds led to facility and garden improvements and upgrades. Now we stand in a $2.5 million gift from the Boyd Foundation that brings historic Columbia's work to new heights. That sounds like a little, I work for the airport, so I love any kind of... Susan, we thank you for your work and your support, and we invite you to share more from the podium. Well, I've known about this place for a long time because of the Garden Club. It's the only thing we had to put money in from our trips and stuff, which was readily reset, but wasn't quite enough. But we had fun doing it. And so I think to realize all that has done a very good job for very little money. And I like to say, and I won't go any further, there is another engine that has made all this possible. And if you put your thinking caps on, you will finally come to know the reason that I say this. It is the engine that has made all this possible. So think hard and you'll come up with it. Anyway, Donny and I were both born in Columbia and he has done very well. And so we thought we'd put it back into Columbia. And it has been very well-recepted. And I think Columbia has so many good things. And I know when I grew up, it had horses and I got on one in a hurry. But it has so many areas that can be made so much better. And Donny did it, I had nothing to do with it at all. I simply ran the house. But he did it and he wanted his money back here and thought it would make about a city. So that's what we've tried to do. And I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks. The Hampton Preston site has enjoyed travelers throughout its existence from those who visited its famed gardens of the 1850s to the days as tourist homes in the 1950s and 60s. We look forward to the impact that this building will have not only on historic Columbia, but also the community at large through enhancing the tourism offerings of our gardens. Now we will hear more about the importance of tourism from Charlene Slaughter with Experience Columbia SC. Good morning. As Kim mentioned, I am Charlene Slaughter. I'm Director of Communications at Experience Columbia SC. I'd like to acknowledge Kelly Barber who's here. She's our Vice President of Marketing Communications and the rest of our Experience Columbia team that's here also. Tourism's economic impact in the Columbia region cannot be overstated. It's a $2.3 billion industry. The Boy Foundation Horticultural Center will only increase the tourism appeal of Columbia for so many types of travelers. The gardening enthusiast, nature lovers, plant moms and dads, and anyone who wants to get to know the real Columbia SC. More than that, this building will tell another part of Columbia's story, one that we share with potential visitors throughout the Southeast and the nation. From the team at Experience Columbia SC, we congratulate historic Columbia and the Boy Foundation on this achievement and look forward to welcoming tourists, travel writers, convention attendees, and others to this beautiful structure. Congratulations. While historic Columbia cares for the Hampton Preston mansion and its grounds, the building is owned by Richland County and the incredible partner and the rehabilitation of the building and the organization as a whole. I'm going to take a quick second to recognize Councilman Paul Livingston and Councilman Gretchen Barron. One of our, who serves as our county liaison, Gretchen is here to say more about the county's role. Gretchen? I am so excited. I get real confused when I have historic Columbia and experience experience Columbia right in the same room because these are the two groups that I just, I enjoy working with a lot because here, this is Richland County. We're the capital county and the day has come that we now are bringing people to Richland County and they want to be here to visit and they want to stay and now we have something else great to offer because of the Boy Foundation. This is an excellent, excellent example of what private public partnership looks like. When I came on Council about a year ago, the one thing that I really wanted to see more of was collaborative efforts and I think this is an excellent example. Richland County has invested more than $1.3 billion in our facilities that Historic Columbia manages for Richland County and they've been doing it now for a very long time, just a very long time, like 1960. So here we are today to celebrate something just a few months ago we stood over by that tree and we dug into the ground and broke ground and starting today and for the rest of the weekend we'll celebrate what's to come here in this building. I was telling them earlier as I close that I was downtown with my husband and we passed by the building and we actually saw a class going on or a meeting or something and I told him I said it's open it's open and he's like what what are you talking about I said you don't see the greenhouse and he's like has that not always been there I said in our minds it was so it's now a reality that's come to pass I say congratulations I look forward to many more years of partnerships thank you. Historic Columbia's purpose is to preserve places and share complex stories that connect us in the present and inspire our future. Our next speaker is someone with the future of Columbia on his mind Mayor Daniel recommend Mayor. It's a great day in Columbia everybody once again we have a beautiful opening as we've talked about since since this election season has changed and we've transitioned that Columbia is open we're open for business we're open for collaboration and we're open for ideas and once again we're at an opening here uh it in a great I've been riding by this for months and months and looking at beauty and I've had more people talking about this structure than anything else going on in Columbia so thank you Mrs. Boyd thank you the Boyd Foundation. I live in a house full of women and today I'm in a room full of very powerful trailblazing women and it's very exciting you know the Palmetto State has more women and businesses we were in the top five in the country for more women and businesses and so once again we have a trailblazing uh patriarch here who who's really helping us move forward and I want to do something different I don't want to talk about the center today I'm Mrs. Boyd I want to thank you for your contributions to the city of Columbia and I want on behalf of the city of Columbia my fellow council members present you with a proclamation declaring March 9th the Susan Boyd Day in Columbia South Carolina and present you with the key for the city of Columbia for all your contributions and everything you've done we can't thank you enough there there's just not enough words to thank you but this small token from us to for all the everything you do and you continue to do and being such a great role model for our next generation and opening eyes for everyone thank you thank you Charlene may you recommend councilwoman Bearon Susan Robin for being here and for all of you sharing in this momentous occasion I've got a couple of thank yous I want to run through before we have a special presentation another special presentation thank you to Lambert architects and cone construction to the members of the historic Columbia board of trustees thank you to our wonderful and dedicated staff and I especially want to highlight the garden staff today as we mentioned Keith Mearns director of the grounds Melanie Murray groundskeeper and Dave rough this small but mighty team cares for all of the grounds throughout the entire historic Columbia properties I also want to thank Renee Chow our director of marketing and communications as well as David Turner the director of development here for historic Columbia they work tirelessly behind the scenes to make all these things happen and go off without a hitch so thank you so much also I would be remiss if I didn't say something about John cheer thank you for all of your dedication to historic Columbia over the years thank you to our volunteers who have donated and will continue to donate to the countless volunteer hours and available hours members of the Boyd Foundation Susan George and Ford Boyd Bailey Mary Bond Bailey Walter Taylor thank you for your support it's also Taylor boy I'm sorry if I missed him thank you for your support and your trust and guidance this project is just a small part of the investment you were making in this community which is transforming where we live where we work and where we play thank you