e all right well we'll go ahead and jump in uh again my name is Luke gwick president and CEO with District energy St Paul and Evergreen energy on behalf of District energy St Paul project sponsor for the Heights Community energy project I want to say thank you for joining us today as we Mark a pivotal moment and the St Paul Port Authority LED Redevelopment project known as The Heights and that pivotal moment is the groundbreaking of the energy system before we begin uh we do want to acknowledge that St Paul stands on the ancestral traditional and contemp contemporary Dakota homelands as we reflect on the events of today and specifically today as indigenous people's day we think it is important to consider the legacies and dimensions of violence displacement migration and settlement that have brought us to the present and with that too commit to understanding respecting supporting and advocating for indigenous people and for this land and finally we hope this land acknowledgement will be more than just a reminder let it be a marker in time where we dedicate ourselves to be better and do better as we move forward to the future the heights represents a bold Redevelopment on St Paul's East Side centering opportunity social equity and sustainability and we are here today because Community Champions you all came together to advocate for an Innovative Net Zero Community Energy System to serve the heights one one once completed the multi-unit residential and light industrial buildings here at the heights will be heated and cooled by one of the largest Network Geo thermal energy systems in the country and the first to use Aqua for thermal energy storage at a commercial scale at the heart of the heights is an energy system designed to support the port Authority's goal of a sustainable and Equitable development this network geothermal system also known as a thermal energy Network or District Energy System will utilize the groundwater as a source and sink for heat in conjunction with ground Source heat pumps fed by renewable electricity to provide renewable Net Zero carbon Energy Services to the community eliminating natural gas infrastructure and consumption will offering reliable cost-based Energy Services from a community based and Community represented system well the aqua for thermal energy storage technology has been widely deployed globally this project will be the first commercial Dey of this proven technology in the United States and this is really good news for us in Minnesota and specifically here in the Twin Cities as the aquafer systems in our region have the appropriate characteristics for this sort of uh technology and this sort of geothermal system this will encourage deployments of like systems we hope elsewhere in the region across the Twin Cities and Minnesota it will educate developers and planners and communities about how using aqua for thermal energy storage as a cost competitive option for reducing carbon emissions in the building sector this is a big idea that is becoming a reality and St Paul and this project is leading the [Applause] way and now I would love to ask the uh the mayor to come forward and provide a few remarks and then after the the mayor gives his remarks we're going to uh take a photo and then uh we'll regroup for some remarks from additional folks so let's hear for the mayor thank you sir I appreciate it thanks boy thank you all for being here it feels like every week we have another amazing exciting uh uh announcement or event uh here on this site uh it's really incredible to see uh just how quickly um this is transforming before our eyes as the the construction has gotten underway just last week we were here was that last week or the week before uh we were here for the habitat build uh which was pretty incredible um I'm Melvin Carter and I'm the mayor of this incredible City uh it's an honor uh approv of a lifetime to be able to serve as mayor of this city uh and we're excited uh that we get a chance to literally build the future together uh sometimes when we talk about building the future it's a metaphor uh but we're literally building the future here uh we are building housing in this space and you know sometimes historically when we said the words affordable housing it's been kind of a trick we've been hid in the bag because you know I I can look back through history and see lots of occasions in which uh folks called something affordable housing but in reality what they were delivering was cheap housing and that cheap housing we found out had a lot of hidden costs associated with it if the rent is low but the cost to heat the place is high uh then if if the rent is low but the cost to maintain the place is high then that's not an affordable home at all and so it's a privilege and it's a pleasure to be able to say that we are truly building affordable housing in this space that's affordable that's high quality places that our families will be able to relax after a long day at school or work and will be able to bring their company with dignity and live with dignity in our community that deserves a round of applause we're excited about all the things that we're doing it's all informed by our climate action and resilience plan we just set goals for St Paul to have be Net Zero in carbon emissions CommunityWide by 2050 um one of the key goals to achieving the goals one of the key measures to achieving these goals will be ensuring that new development like this can be heated cooled and powered without burning fossil gases this can be accomplished with carbon- free electricity and with clean geothermal heating and cooling transitioning to clean heat is something the state of Minnesota and the whole country need to do and here in St Paul we're starting that transition right here on the east side we're really proud that this will be as was mentioned earlier the first Network geothermal heating and cooling system in the state um and we're also proud that the second one will be in St Paul 2 at Ko Zoo uh because that's what St Paul needs to do is be a leader where all of these things are concerned this project here is very very personal to me and also so important to me in the professional work I do as a council member here in St Paul so this past year my husband and I we became firsttime homeowners something I'm so so proud of and honestly something that I could never really imagin myself accomplishing especially as a daughter of refugees who grew up in a low-income family before we bought our home though we were renting right in the pain failing neighborhood and during the winter season our energy bills were around $700 a month my question is how do you even budget for that it's so unsustainable and also for so many families in the side who are living paycheck to paycheck how do you even manage to pay for that year after year what we are talking about here which is making sure that uh that households here in the Heights are energy efficient that folks have very affordable energy bills it is so important and so critical and so real right now now to many folks in the east side even though that is the present that I experienc when I was renting and also it's the present for so many families we need to make sure that in the future no one has to experience that at all so I'm so proud to be in this work with all of you as we trailblaze towards an energy efficient zeroc carbon future thank you so much for your leadership and partnership I can't wait for the geothermal infrastructure right right behind us here to be completed and for all of us to see the positive impact our Collective efforts will have on families here at the heights our planet in all generations to come thanks everybody thank you council member Yang next I'd like to invite council member sheno Johnson to the [Applause] podium all right well I am super excited my name is Shenika Johnson again and I'm the council member of w 7 and a partner on the east side as it relates to just making sure we have more sustainable housing opportunities for our communities we know that the families that are here 5 years from now 10 years from now are going to remember this moment right now and that it's a starting point of the bigger story and that's just to continue to see more sustainable opportunities here in the city of St Paul and throughout the country so thank you so much for being here as well and for allowing me to be here to say a few words thank you Council M Johnson uh next I would like to invite Katherine sneki from the St Paul Port Authority good afternoon uh thank you so much Luke thank you mayor council member yang council member Johnson uh for your leadership uh my name is Katherine sariki and I'm the chief development officer for the St Paul Port Authority and I've had the pleasure of leading the heights Redevelopment project for the past 5 years and today marks an exciting milestone in that Journey this all began with a powerful Community Vision to create the greenest development possible right here on St Paul's greater East Side the heights is much more than a construction site it's the future home of thriving sustain able Community we're on track to bring 1,000 jobs to an area that currently only has 3,000 jobs for its 30,000 residents at a time when the demand for affordable housing is critical the heights will deliver attainable homes for people who need them most our goal is ambitious to cut greenhouse gas emissions and develop land in a way that is sustainable and Equitable but we're not just building structures we're building a community a place where people can live work and play all while working towards a cleaner Greener future thank you all for your commitment and your partnership to make this happen I look forward to seeing how the heights will grow and thrive in the [Applause] future thanks Katherine uh next I would like to invite Chris Sherman from Sherman and Associates to provide a few remarks Chris [Applause] uh thank you very much and I thank you uh I will uh be brief but I I do really appreciate uh the opportunity here to speak alongside uh such great leaders that are out here really at the Forefront of driving long-term sustainability driving long-term impacts and these are really generational impacts we're making at the Heights from both uh sustainability energy standpoint the work that evergreen's doing in partnership with the port authority and the city to deliver this system is just tremendous and it's one of the many things that really attracted our company Sherman Associates alongside Jo companies and Twin Cities Habitat to really want to be a part of this this large vision and I'm very honored to be up here today just saying a few remarks so thank you for having me join uh but I want to thank all of you out here for the great work that's going on behind me all around 112 Acres uh over the next several years we're going to bring this whole Golf Course to the Heights and thank you thanks appreciate [Applause] it next I would like to invite uh Chelsea de Arman from St Paul 350 we're holding the mic now or if you want to do the stand whichever hello I am Chelsea dearman founder of St Paul 350 which we're now proud to say is known as unido's St Paul so we were told over the course of the five years or so that we were everyone here was working on this project we were told about half a dozen times that the district geothermal system was definitely not going to happen uh it was too expensive too complicated too too late but we refuse to let it die it took all of us here to make the height system of reality together we prove that St Paul has what we need to bring clean heat not just to the heights but to all of our neighborhoods this is the right thing to do not only for St Paul but for Pipestone and for our planet so while we're all here together I want to ask especially for my elected leader ERS what will be the next Community to get clean heat in St Paul for example how can we make sure geic geothermal infrastructure is included in the common sense Street reconstruction projects how can we weatherize homes to prepare them for the transition to clean heat how can we secure local funds that can be leveraged to win abundant state and federal grants um so let's all keep in touch and I look forward to seeing you at the next groundbreaking I'll just hand it off thanks so much all right ladies and gentlemen that concludes our uh our Ceremony this afternoon let me just double check yes it does okay um I just want to say thank you again to to everyone for taking time out of your schedule to be here today for this this momentous occasion I'm I'm so impressed by uh the diverse stakeholder group that we have today it takes so people all pulling in the same direction to make a project like this happen and I'm I'm proud of this community and this stakeholder group for making this happened St Paul has demonstrated innovation in heating and cooling for a long time and we're continuing that track record and people are noticing so let's give ourselves a big round of applause