 And everyone, thanks for being here. This is a really unique opportunity here in downtown. As most folks know, Joe Azar was a pillar in this community. He didn't waste any time on letting you know his thoughts and his opinions on issues. But at the end of the day, one thing you can never take away from Joe Azar was that he cared about this community probably more than most people care about their own house or their animals. Everything he did was really at the goodness of his heart. He really cared about this community. And he wanted Columbia to be probably the number one city in South Carolina. But his roots ran deep. And I don't think people understood that. I just learned some more history today just by having the conversation about what's happening here. And Joe left this world too early. But Joe also is still here. He's still working for this community, by what he's done for the community, by leaving a foundation that benefits those people in our community. And today, he's taken an option to take a family piece of property, turn it into a rental, so that rental income can then go back out into the community to improve our community, to make it a better place. And Joe always said, I always want to leave Columbia better than I came into it. And I'm going to continue to do it. And he's doing it. He's doing what a lot of people say they're going to do and don't. And he did. And I think that's an incredible statement by him, but a testimony of the character and why he was such a pillar in our community. Some people just remember the micro bus. Some people just remember upstairs, audio. I remember Joe really being involved in our community. I can remember the first time that he sat down and explained to his vision of Columbia to me. And that was in 1994, because it was two months after I opened up my first restaurant. And we sat down one morning and had coffee. Joe said, I just need 30 minutes, three hours later, he walked out. And anybody who knows Joe knows that's true. But this is an incredible rendition. When is that the right term, John, of interpretation of the original house that was here? And I think the architects, the development team has really captured that's incredible. I'd like to ask John Shearer to come up and just talk a little bit about the home and the history, because I think it really opens up the rest of the discussion. John? Thank you, mayor. Good morning. I'm John Shearer, director of preservation for Historic Columbia. And this is a really exciting day, because what we have here is the synthesis of a historic structure that we knew of based on family history. We had a photograph. That was really amazing. And that helped inform the new construction that breeds vitality into this historic district. It also, I think, is illustrative of the collaboration between city personnel and private developers, as well as, of course, a very talented design team. And so when you have these forces coming together, it helps kind of reweave the fabric of our community from a structural sense, but also a community sense. And with the ability to do that, we as a community get stronger. So I'm very excited from a preservation perspective. It's new construction within a historic context. But it's also something that is helping increase the capacity of our community. I will be reading this speech. It is from Will Aco, who is a cousin of Joe Azar. But he lives in Las Vegas and couldn't be here. So I'm representing him. And I am the widow of Bruce Yasky, who was a very close friend of Joseph Azar. And I'm here today on behalf of William speaking. So he has written the speech. So if you know Joe, Will's kind of like Joe. They're both kind of verbose. There's a lot of stuff in here. So I do have to read it. I could not memorize it. He said, this 51-foot-wide, 100-feet deep, parceled land located at 1324 Risen Street in the Robert Mills Historic Neighborhood and Landmark Preservation District has an interesting history. It was first annexed on March 22, 1786 by the city, which was three years before the Constitution of the United States went into effect. So that's pretty remarkable. The second it was owned by Malvena Alexander since 1918, when the house was on it. George Alexander, the husband of Malvena, was the founder of Alexander's bargain house in 1904 at 1410 Assembly Street. George died in 1950 upon his wife Malvena's passing in 1957. The land in the house passed to Elder Azar, the mother of Joseph Azar. Evelyn works in the banking industry then for South Carolina Department of Mental Health, volunteered at Providence Hospital. There was a daughter of the Holy Star in order of the Eastern Star. Like her grandparents, she was a lifelong member of Trinity Episcopal Church Cathedral. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, the house burned down in 1974, and the land became a parking lot ever since. Well, until it well got it, it got rid of the parking lot. When Evelyn Azar died in 2009, the land was inherited by her only son, Joseph Azar, the founder of the cyclist and upstairs audio and five points, who had always wanted to build a park here. Upon Joseph's death in September 2019, the executor of his state, my husband, Bruce Yeske, was his longtime best friend who was fond, I'm sorry, fond of saying he was Joseph's first employee and also his last. He worked with Joseph's cousin, William, in the city of Columbia to create a park that would be suitable for everyone. Unfortunately, the park was not workable, but there was a lot of effort in trying to create that. Joseph's state had unique legal issues, and from those arose what we are groundbreaking today. Excuse me, a historical reproduction of the original house with modern improvements for commercial purposes for one smart and fortunate tenant. Many people are to thank for where we are today, including employees of the city of Columbia, specifically the building preservation, planning, water and zoning departments, as well as the historic Columbia. The Selutam Mallard Architecture Forum represented by Wendy Bergman and Cleve Walker, the general contractor, Hillman Design Bill, represented by Michael Grand and Thomas Peterson, and Trinity Partners, real estate brokers, William Milt and Roger Wynn, representing this pre-release opportunity for an energy efficient, all electric building. Once this building and its historic landscaping are completed, we will return here for a routine cutting ceremony whereby this plaque, oh, it's being held, um, dedicated to the Alexanders and Azars, and in honor and respect to Brzezinski, will be placed to the right of the front door. A black granite memorial will be placed in a little garden area under the front tree, dedicated to the Azar Legal Justice Foundation, whose two beneficiaries are the Trinity, Episcopal, Cathedral, and Holy Trinity, the Greek Orthodox Church. Oh my gosh, my heart's in water. The house rental income will go to the Azar Foundation and the churches, the intent being to make right for their parish and the local community in Columbia. In closing, before we move on to other speakers, remember something from today's event, do what needs to be done, not what you want to do. Thank you, bye. Hey, good morning, everyone. My name's Ryan Coleman. I'm the Economic Development Director for the City of Columbia, and just pleased to be here today and be a part of this commemoration ceremony. I know Joe for many years, doing a lot of our work with existing business outreach. I went in to talk with him at upstairs one day, told him, you know, I'm here from the government, just came in, I wanna get your thoughts and opinions on how our things are going, Joe's like, you should probably just go ahead and sit down, this is gonna take a while. I had many interactions with him, you know, through there, through his, he'd come up to city hall frequently and, but, you know, he, you know, no matter what his opinion was, he always cared, he always had a good sense of humor about it and he always wanted to put the city first. I was really pleased when William reached out to me to ask help coordinate this. I did not, you know, know that much about the Azar, the Alexander family, and then the history here, and so it's been a really tremendous opportunity for me to learn about the family, the generational impact, you know, the years of service that they've had here to the city of Columbia. And so it was an educating and an eye-opening experience and I'm pleased that we're all here today to be a part of this, you know, not only to recognize Joe, but to recognize his family's years of service to the community and, you know, hopefully through this rehabilitation effort with bringing the house and the public space back in, his efforts to better the city will be memorialized here and into perpetuity. So thank you all for being here and being a part of this today as well. Thank you. I'm William Mills and I'm with training partners and I'll be handling the pre-leasing and I think we should find a good tenant, whether that's a law firm or an architectural firm and hopefully it'll be before the end of the year because if we get that, somebody could come in there and they can help kind of navigate what they want in the interior while it's still under construction but any questions about leasing, feel free to call myself or Roger Wynne with training partners, thank you. Hello everyone, we are Saluda Mallard. I am Wendy Bergman and Cleave Walker. We did the design and worked with William on this and we started in about mid 2020. We had a single black and white photograph to go off of as well as a sandborn map, a historic sandborn map to get the massing and the siting of the original house that burned down in 74 on this site. The process has been a bit long and complicated and to be honest, we wondered if anything was ever really gonna happen here. But the fact that we're all here today is a true testament to William and his dedication and respect for not only his cousin but for his original executor, Bruce. Somewhat unhappily at times, William has seen this project through to where we are today and we're witnessing the fruits of his labor so he deserves a lot of credit for this. Not only is he seeing through and preserving Joe's legacy but he's also putting his own stamp on Columbia right here on Richland Street. To close, I will share a little bit of wisdom that William has bestowed upon Cleave and I during the design phase and in hopes it will help keep the construction phase moving smoothly. It's also known as the KISS principle. Keep it simple, stupid. Thank you. Hey, I'm Mike Grandy with Hillman Design Build. We're the general contractor that will be undertaking this project. We're really excited to build this amazing property. It's very rare that we get the opportunity to build a historic structure with new construction methods. So, having said that, William's really put a ton of effort into the design with Fluta Mallard on making this building last for another 200 years. It'll long outlive any one of us. It's gonna be built extremely energy efficient, really airtight and it'll be at a really low operating cost to the charities and the tenants in the future. We really look forward to this opportunity. Thank you.