As an expert transcriptionist, I have analyzed the context and dialogue provided to identify the speakers. Please note that since the original text did not include timestamps, I have used relative placeholders. [00:00] **Nick Bernan:** Uh, thank you for being here this morning and good morning. My name is Nick Bernan with Opus Development. I'm just going to say a few words and then I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Joe Mahoney, but I just wanted to thank everybody for being here today and making this project a reality. Uh, to the RJ Schinner team, the city of Cottage Grove, Mayor Bailey, the council members, everybody at Opus, the Hillcrest team—thank you for being here. We wouldn't be here today without all of you, without the hard work, the collaboration, the trust, and the confidence in Opus. So thank you for that. It's very exciting for us to be here today standing next to a building that we completed, talking about the groundbreaking of another great project, bringing a great company with great jobs to a great city. So thank you again for being here. I'll turn it over to Joe Mahoney, Senior Director of Real Estate at Opus, to talk a little bit more about the details. [01:15] **Joe Mahoney:** Thanks, Nick. Uh, as Nick mentioned, 125,000 square foot building that will be done by the end of this year. Uh, very excited. It's been a very collaborative project from working with Hillcrest as a partner in this entire development here, um, as well as the city. Uh, this is our fourth or fifth building here now over the past six or seven years. Um, Renewal by Andersen, the North Star Sheets, and the CAP Industries properties across the road track here. So it's been a great partnership. The city truly is one of the best cities that we've worked with. Um, they're—they're flexible and they're great leaders and guidance as we push a project forward. They're able to move quickly, which is very important for our projects. So thanks again. Um, as well as CBRE and Colliers, brokerage brokers on both of these projects, uh, representing both us as well as the ultimate users of the project and ultimately, uh, RJ Schinner. They've been great to work with and we look forward to delivering them their new project here. So thanks for coming out today and we're excited to get this project started. I'll now turn over to Mayor Bailey. [02:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey:** Awesome, thank you. Well, obviously I love doing these things where you get to throw some dirt here in Cottage Grove. So I just wanted to first of all, uh, thank RJ Schinner for investing in our community. Uh, this is an important thing for us. And obviously for Opus, uh, and Hillcrest for, uh, being a part of this. Uh, one of the things, uh, people may not know—because I've had some people actually ask me about what does RJ Schinner do—and, uh, they redistribute marketplace for food service wholesalers, paper products, janitorial and sanitation wholesalers, and also grocery supplies. And I guess you've been doing that for over 70 years, which is quite amazing. And so we're very excited that you've now chosen Cottage Grove, because I do know you have multiple facilities across the United States. So whenever we can get these kind of situations where we can have a business come and work with us as a community, this is really an opportunity for us to make a win-win for everyone involved. And obviously, I was very excited to hear from Opus and the group here that we're one of their favorite cities to work with, and hopefully we'll just keep that moving. And obviously with—with the new company coming into town, we'd love to see that also. I did want to mention, um, if people are watching this and they're wondering where this is located, uh, our business park keeps expanding, right? We're—we're building all over the place, but this is—uh, this location is in essence, right behind, for the local group, right behind Hamlet Park, uh, right next to North Star Sheets, which again was a project that they completed. And, uh, this kind of finishes off this last phase here, if you will. So this is the furthest that we can go north in our business park. Hopefully in the future, we'll be able to continue to expand to our south, uh, as years go by. But I did want to just mention too, uh, as I've said before, very excited for RJ Schinner to be here, but also the teamwork that we've done with Opus on these variety of projects here, uh, within our community. And lastly, you know, we're obviously here today, uh, to throw some dirt, uh, and you can hear they're working behind us already, which is awesome. I really do look forward to the point where we get to come back and do an official ribbon cutting, uh, and then and meet some of these, uh, jobs that are being created here. I believe the number's around 25, uh, new jobs that'll be, uh, created here in Cottage Grove. So we continue to see job growth in this community, expanding our tax base and great investments. So on behalf of myself—I can speak for the county, I guess—this is our County Commissioner Carla Bigham. We welcome you to Washington County and welcome you to Cottage Grove. And did you say Mike? Mike, do you want to come up and speak from RJ Schinner? I guess I'm introducing you. There we go. [05:20] **Mike (RJ Schinner):** So thank you, Mayor Bailey, we really appreciate it. Uh, my first groundbreaking. Very excited. Uh, thanks for Joel Harpel, who pretty much made me say something today. Um, and that's fine. Uh, yeah, so—uh, first groundbreaking. I asked Joe, I'm like, "Oh, so, you know, what do I do? What do I say?" And he goes, "Well, you just thank pretty much everyone." So everyone here, I thank you, but, uh, um, if I miss you, I apologize. But, uh, um, first, Cottage Grove, Mayor Bailey and the city council people—just wonderful, very easy to work with, great partnership. It's going to be great. I'm already looking forward to it. Uh, next, I want to [thank] Hillcrest Development, who—the land that we got the land from. I want to say thanks to you guys too. Um, next, uh, Brian Van Hoof, my broker from CBRE. Uh, again, a lot of stuff goes in—nobody knows all the things that go behind the scenes and all the things that we have to do. We're a family-owned company, so that kind of made things a little bit more difficult, but, you know, we got it across the finish line on that. Um, Opus Group—very, very—they're awesome people to work with. Um, Joe Harpel, Joel Mahoney, um, all of them. It's just been really, really good to work with. Has made—is making this, uh, you know, design-build and all that flawless. It's going to be great and we're really looking forward to it. So, um, and again, and I think Mayor Bailey said it and Joe did as well, we're excited to be here. We're going to be here a long time. 125,000 [square feet], we expect to go another 75,000. We're going to expand to take care of our, uh, customers and we're going to do it right here in Cottage Grove. So thank you very much. Thank you. [Applause] [07:10] **Nick Bernan:** Okay, well thank you everybody. Um, I think we'll have a few folks come up and throw some dirt. So, um, Joe, do you—is it Mike, Beth maybe? Mayor Bailey, do you have the list? No? Megan? Yep. Mike, Brandon, Carla, if you want him. Two more. Oh, we gotta do that again. Get ready. Okay.