 Columbia and welcome to City View, where we bring you an inside view of the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Utsi. In our top story, we take you to the grand opening and ribbon cutting for the Busby Street Community Resource and Training Complex. This is a great example of what happens when communities come together, stay focused, find common ground, and really apply their experiences on behalf of the communities. That's what this is all about. Playground over here, intergenerational, senior citizens facility, playground there, and making this community safer, and the police substation here. That's what it's all about. Anytime we can bring police services right into a community like this, I think it's terrific. This will be the office of community services for us. So a lot of the units that are providing community services will be housed right here. There'll be a lot of activity here. It's one of the first times we've commingled ourselves with another city division, being park and recreation. I think that is a great partnership. I think you'll see us working in tandem with them in programming for our community. We intend to hold community meetings here and have different events here. So endeavors like this strengthen communities. And speaking of ribbon cuttings, we now take you to Cap Gemini, which is located in the first base building at Bull Street. We became a delivery center and then advanced technology development center. Now this focus on cybersecurity, recognizing the changing and perilous world in which we live and which we have to protect literally trillions of dollars of assets and the great work that Cap Gemini does on behalf of its clients. Recognizing the incredible draw this is and bringing talent in from around the world but also in retaining the great talent that we have coming out of the University of South Carolina and all of our colleges and institutions and the focus on developing the future workforce. And now we take you from facilities that recently opened to a facility that will open coming soon. We take you to a hard hat tour and sneak peek at the veranda at North Main. This project adds to the core or development of North Main with this 10 million and then the 40 million streetscape. You look at those together that's 50 million in development. We also own the commercial properties next door where we work very hard to get senior type services there. A lot of our seniors or may not have transportation or even if they do it makes it very easy to go across the street and get your prescription filled or go to the dentist or the podiatry office and you know power metal health is just around the corner. The bus line stops right in front for those who may not have transportation. So it's kind of a senior hub and then Hyatt Park will be going through a renovation in the next couple of next year I think so the seniors will have a great place to go across the street and outside space although we have a lot of inside space we have what they call a cardiac room or exercise room as most of us know it a community room and a game room. So we're expecting seniors to have a good place to come together and social aspects of senior living. Have you ever had lunch with a planner? Well if not you have the opportunity to have lunch with the city's planning and development services staff. They've been hosting monthly lunch with the planner sessions in order to discuss the Columbia Compass Envision 2036 plan and other planning issues. Looking at where the city needs to be in 10 years wants to be in 10 years or even 20 or 30 because sometimes those things that you want to be farther out you set up the building blocks now that get you someplace else and so with with putting a city together a lot of things take a lot of time they don't happen as as quickly as ordering something online for example and so we're really just engaging with people trying to find out you know what are the successes that they feel Columbia's had in the last couple decades where are we now where we need to move forward from and it's been interesting. It is the time of year for the city of Columbia's annual Arbor Day recognition ceremony which was held at South Kilbourne Elementary School. Arbor Day we've had a tradition of working with the city of Columbia with planting trees lessons that teach students about the importance how that cycle works with oxygen carbon dioxide all those things so that our students learn the importance of trees and environment at a young age and that carries with them throughout their life. Sometimes we may take our trees for granted but part of the lesson and part of the activities that that this event and others bring is showing students how trees impact our environment impact our economy here in the state so it's an opportunity to see that impact in action. And now we transition from an elementary school to Riverfront Park where this year's treasured tree ceremony for award winners was held. It was hosted by the city's forestry and beautification division along with local partners. The treasured tree program is to nominate and like recognize special trees that we have in our community. What was cool through the submissions that you guys got I got to see these trees that I did not know about that are here in the community in the Midlands area. I think the common theme I kept seeing was just like the nostalgia and the history that comes with a tree and how it can't easily be replaced and how special it can be and the memories that are created. The other thing we kind of look for is just like the rarity of the species to this area possibly or just the size. So all of these trees have historical value or their size or they're just like a perfect specimen of what that tree should look like through to look at it in a book. It is always a pleasure to announce promotions of city staff and recently the Columbia Richland Fire Department announced a promotional ceremony for those in the department. I always try to take this personally and pin it first. First of all when they get hired because they start a career here at the department and it's always my pleasure to pin them when they first start but also I love to see them grow and go into being promoted so it's always a pleasure for me to promote to pin them when they get promoted as well. From the firefighter to the chief everybody got a specific role that they play and if anybody's out of place in their role it just throws everything off. So everybody got specific roles so that it was red up what their job is and everybody especially on the fire ground everybody got a certain role that they have to play to make you know so we can go home safe. Well it's the holiday season so that means it's time for the city's annual official holiday ornament to be unveiled. This ornament and all of the ornaments for the last decade plus adorn the Christmas tree and the Benjamin the household every single year. My children love receiving them they love celebrating the authenticity of our historic structures or iconic structures here in Columbia by sharing in this tradition given to us by the Babcock Center. It helps us appreciate the place that we call home and the people who make the place that we call home the Curtis Wright hangars of another project that the city was very proud to participate in and so thankful for the work that the Brennan's and their entire team have done in making that place a wonderful new place for this community to celebrate all of the things that makes Columbia special. Well that wraps up this edition of City View. We thank you for watching and if you have any questions about anything on this program please call the public relations media and marketing department here at the City of Columbia. Call us at 545-3020 you may visit our website at columbiasc.net and definitely follow us on our social media platforms as well as staying tuned right here to City TV and remember we are Columbia.