 morning and thank you for coming this morning for the commercial retention and redevelopment program I am Missy Gentry assistant city manager and I do want to say on behalf of our city manager Teresa Wilson who could not be here that we're glad you're here we're excited about this program and we welcome you to ask questions and learn more. I will be real brief I do want to talk about the facility that we're located in you may remember in October of 2017 we officially opened this facility it's the city's newest water and wastewater maintenance facility we operate our entire system really out of this building and all of the guys who work out in the field the guys and gals who work out in the field to maintain our water and sewer system start in this building every morning and they end at night we have about 250 to 300 employees that come here every day to report to work and go out and do their jobs this is a 14 million dollar lead certified facility it is gold certified so if you have not toured it yet we welcome you to come back and would love to see you on the tour of our facility and this is an example of really what the city's doing these days so we're very proud to be here this morning we will talk about specific program initiatives and you will hear from our mayor and councilman Howard DeVall to talk about that as well as our OBO staff thank you Missy and I do want to restate how proud we are the Columbia Water Operations Center and for those of you who may not have had the opportunity to cover comprehensively what's happening happened in this space I would encourage you to do so this building is lead gold certified it is a classic example of what a community can do when it comes together this building as many of you may remember if you rode past on a regular base basis old car dealership lay fallow for years and the community can together to make sure there was some really good things happening here 250 taxpaying hard-working citizens coming through here every single morning the largest green roof in the city rain gardens porous pavement to help deal with the flooding that communities all across the country are dealing with right now a building that that shows you can you can you can put new life into into old space and in this this space of course is not just for press conferences but can be used for community purposes as well hold 300 people so it's a it's a wonderful example of what a community can do when it comes together so we're very proud of this space and the contribution it's making to the West Belt Line corridor and the great neighborhoods that surround us the wonderful work of our office of business of opportunity business opportunities over the last several years particularly with this facade program is another great example of what you can do to strategically use public investment to try and leverage up significant private sector investment over the last several years we've seen 993 thousand dollars of public money help leverage up over six almost six and a half million dollars of private sector capital on North Main Street Main Street proper and over here in the East Central part of town improving taking buildings that have seen better days and helping them look a whole lot better function a whole lot better understand that people in capital are attracted to places that are attractive and we're doing it and helping elevate the entire community in the in at the same time so we're talking about a combined total of public and private investment of seven point four million dollars a lot of other great things are happening here all across the community in this part of town the community Columbia Housing Development Corporation has received funding to acquire and demolish a whole lot of substandard housing that has been vacant for a long time helping clear them up so that the wonderful neighborhoods over here Belvedere Book of Washington Heights and others we expected to demolish old houses and build new homes over here for families that want to call Columbia home if you write up the five thousand block of Farrer Road you'll see that we've already started construction on the Busby Street project at that location we have a community center police department substation outdoor play area walking trails for seniors and for young people alike for some years the community's had a facility of this type at the top of its wish list and I'm so thankful along with Mr. Duval Mr. Davis Rev McDowell and Ms. Divine and Mr. Rickerman all of us to come together to make this happen for this residence and thanks so thankful for our staff for sticking it through and making sure that this remained at the top of the priority list we expect this all to come together and this facility be open to the public later this year and of course many of you have also heard about the fantastic large project currently coming together just to the west of us we're going to determine all the final components but the goal is to have a consumer owned grocery store cooperative a food hub an urban farm and a large recreation area again including walking trails and in ball fields the types of public investments that that leads a much higher quality of life and help you grow a city the way it's supposed to grow a city for all people so we're just thankful for the for the community vision and even more thankful for our incredible staff we have great city departments helping lead these various initiatives office of business opportunities Jerry Lynn and Melissa as they in their entire team as they implement these most this most recent program to help our small businesses with financial assistance to help ensure that they remain in business and help fulfill the needs of our residents and surrounding communities so I want to thank you all for being here there's a lot of information I want to ask my my friend in our at-large city councilman how do you all take the microphone thank you mayor was just about two years ago that two rookies on your city council councilman McDowell and DeVal got an invitation from Jerry Lynn to get on a bus to come see the facade programs and I was amazed at what she showed us most of those projects were along two nights road but as we rode up and got out of the bus and looked at what a small amount of public money had done to rehabilitate the facades of these buildings and make to the two-night card are more attractive for other businesses I was pleased at how the city of Columbia was leading with public private partnerships that benefited all of the citizens of Columbia I know that councilman McDowell was very pleased because he has been a big proponent of continuing this and we're going in not only on continuing on two nights road but we'll do Farrow Road with this new round of grants by the time these projects come to council is taking years of work for other people to develop what we're going to do with a little bit of money that that are allocated for the Office of Business Opportunity and they get maximum results from a minimum amount of public dollars which is very good for all the tax-paying citizens of Columbia everyone deserves good water and sewer and we're in a building now that reflects the the pride that we have in our water and sewer systems but we also deserve good police and fire service streets and parks and businesses both large and small which offer jobs that generate the necessary income to enrich our lives. Several more projects are in the creative and planning stages and we all can look forward to hearing about those as they are finalized and shared with us on the council in the near future. Finally it is my pleasure to introduce Jerry Lynn Hall of the Office of Business Opportunities as she and other share today their recent success along two nights road and the anticipated achievement of this latest OBO initiative. Jerry Lynn. Good morning I am Jerry Lynn Hall with the Office of Business Opportunities and before we jump into what we've got coming up we want to tell you about how we finished up on two-notch road. The program was done in two phases it ran basically along two-notch from Providence Hospital out to Cushman Drive where four stakers picks up. In that area we did a total of 16 forgivable loan projects and two loans. We had a combined total public investment from both phases of two hundred fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars combined private investment of sixty thousand six hundred and fifty dollars for a total program initiative of two hundred seventy five thousand dollars and two hundred seventy five thousand four hundred dollars. Again we did over sixteen projects and they ranged from the sixteen hundred block all the way up to the thirty two hundred block of two-notch. I want to take us right into the commercial retention and redevelopment program that is what we are really here about today. This program was able to combine in a timely manner not only the facade improvement program but the commercial loan program. We are covering Farrow Road from Colonial Drive to West Belt Line and on West Belt Line we are going from Bailey Street to Brooklyn. The facade improvement program we have a slate of eligible improvement items for the exterior of those buildings and those are items like awnings, tree planting, lighting, masonry, painting, roofing, new awnings, windows and doors and that type of thing. We have up to fifteen thousand on the city's side to put toward any single parcel where there is a commercial building to make improvements. I am going to have Brett Whiting come up and tell about his portion of the loan portion of the program and share with you on that note. My understanding is with the facade program that the facade program was an individual program prior to this program. We had the opportunity this time to co-mingle those programs with a commercial loan piece of it. So the facade, you had fifteen thousand dollars available on the commercial loan side. It had a ten thousand dollar maximum. The loan is totally forgivable. Within a two year period there is zero interest. The rate of the forgiveness is over two years so it is 50% per year that goes away. The loan funds can be used for renovations on buildings, interior or exterior, the purchase of machinery, equipment, supplies, materials, etc. Recently all applicants were received, reviewed and scored and our award recipients are on Farrell Road were K-bell properties located at 3035 Farrell Road, Kathy's Hairstyling Salon at 3116 Farrell Road, 3118 Farrell Road, Houses of Allen's Barber Shop, and on West Belt Line, Outings Barber Shop at 3705 West Belt Line and 3830 West Belt Line where Avatar Essentials is located. We are presently scheduling the closings for these wonderful projects. Construction will be underway at these various locations within one to two weeks. Just look for the signs. I would now like to introduce the OBO's new director, Melissa Lender, to give closing remarks. Thank you and thank all of you for being here today. As Brett said, I am the new director for the Office of Business Opportunities. My name is Melissa Lender and although I've only been here a short time with the city, it did not take me long to realize the tremendous amount of leadership that we have with our mayor, our city council, and our senior management of the city of Columbia as well as our staff. It has been a great opportunity for me to see all the great work that's going on in the city. Although before coming to the city, I would drive past, I've lived here all my life, so I would drive down, ferro road, drive down West Belt Line. I was like, wow, it looks different here. And I know why now. It's these investments that the city has committed to make here where we are now, the West Belt Line Boulevard, the ferro road extension, all of these areas. I want to give you a little information for those of you that are not familiar with the Office of Business Opportunities. We have three different divisions in our office. We provide financial assistance, education, technical assistance, advocacy for small businesses, all small businesses. And we also have a division that concentrates on contractor and supplier diversity. Now this morning you heard about the financial assistance available through our commercial retention and redevelopment program, which is the first time we've ever provided a forgivable $10,000 commercial loan as part of this project, as part of our facade project. So we're very, very excited about that partnership. And as Brett mentioned, the leveraging of our public dollars through the city's general budget and through the CDBG funding. Now what West Belt Line actually is a border, or yeah, it's a border for the community developments, neighborhood revitalization service area. This means that one side of the street is inside the redevelopment area, and the other side is not. However, both are within city limits. So it's through the leveraging and the innovation of our OBO staff, and of course the leadership of the city of Columbia, that we're able to provide revitalization efforts on both sides of the street, on both sides of the corridor, excuse me. So moving forward, what we would like to do is continue to look at innovative ways that we can partner and utilize our resources, both leveraging our municipal dollars, as well as our CDBG dollars to look at ways that we can continue to revitalize this area. And I would like to also state before I leave here, thanks to the staff, the OBO staff, Jerry Lynn. She's been a great resource and she's very, very energetic and she loves this project and thank you so much, as well as Brad. He's also new. He's our new loan director. We also have other staff in the audience that I want to just recognize and say thank you for all the work that you've done. I've inherited a very, very productive and professional staff. Thanks to my predecessor, Tina Herbert. She's done a great job with the department and I look forward to continuing that success. Thank you.