I am not sure that I ever thought I’d be here for a real groundbreaking. This is the third time I’m participating in some sort of ceremony for Parcel B.

Some perspective on today:

• This groundbreaking is actually the culmination of a process that began in the late 1980s when the Redevelopment Agency began to acquire the property and relocate the businesses.
• We said goodbye to the Culver House, La Ballona Mexican Restaurant, Big Ed’s Bar where Starsky and Hutch used to meet Huggie Bear and the hand laundry where my father took his dress shirts.
• Development on this site was first entitled in 2000. That was actually two developers ago.
  A lawsuit to stop the project, the great recession, the elimination of redevelopment
• And look. A mere 3½ decades later, there is actually construction equipment on site.
• I was on the City Council in 2011 when we selected The Steps, after a design competition for Parcel B.
• We were excited to approve a development in the heart of Downtown that would bring long awaited retail to Downtown and enable us to expand and complete our Town Plaza.
• When the governor and legislature decided to eliminate redevelopment in California in 2011, they took from Culver City nearly $20 million in housing money. It had been earmarked for the creation of low- and moderate-income housing, and it threatened to take all of our redevelopment property and parking structures. It seemed this site would remain undeveloped indefinitely.
• Thanks to staff, a determined City Council and don’t forget the lawyers, we fought through that. Eventually, we got the state to allow us to retain the property and control our own development destiny.
• Fast forward, so to speak, to 2014, when Michael Hackman and his forward thinking team purchased The Culver Studios
• Michael and company saw the importance in owning the project right outside the gates of the historic mansion – and again, quickly, in evolutionary terms, he negotiated its purchase.
• And, that’s what brings us here today.
• We are finally getting The Culver Steps, our expanded Town Plaza, more great restaurants and retail for not only our residents and current employees, but the 800 new Amazon employees who will be working right next door.
• This project will complete Downtown.
• It will bring a new vibrancy. It will be a destination that will define the heart of Culver City.
• Look at all we have been able to accomplish – look around.
• It’s not the empty downtown Culver City of 30 years ago, where Sagebrush Cantina was about the only place to eat down here.
• I am proud of the City Councils and city staffs going back to last century for their efforts that got us to today. I’m thrilled that I was able to play a part in helping to shape what Culver City has become.
• Today, the capstone to decades of revitalization in downtown Culver City is at hand.
• We were never sure it would start. We can’t wait until it’s finished.
• Now, let’s do this… and turn some dirt.