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909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
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Thursday night was the Zoning Commission hearing (if you could figure out their calendar to find that out) for Monument Realty's big mixed-use project on Half Street just north of the Nationals ballpark. The webcast started late, and was without audio for a bit, so I missed the beginning, but did manage to see and hear the presentation of the designs. (Bear with me, this will be a long entry, but I know there's much interest in this project.)
I managed to get a few images of the project renderings, which ain't easy over a grainy webcast (I won't divulge my secret method), so be prepared that they have a rather impressionistic 1930s watercolor look to them that isn't necessarily what they're really going to look like. Go to my Monument Half Street page for not only the renderings (not the one at the top of the page, the others further down) but also an updated map that shows how the buildings are laid out.
As expected, the 275,000-sq-ft office building is at Half and M, and will incorporate on its ground floor a renovated entrance to the Navy Yard Metro station, which will have large opaque mesh screens with LED lighting to avoid the huge black holes of space that are often seen when buildings sit atop Metro entrances (I think they also need the extra wall space that the screens provide, because the farecard machines and turnstiles will all be on the street level, not down in the station). These will be able to project lights and images and will no doubt be a big focal point.
As you walk south toward the stadium, you would then come to a new street about a third of the way down Half, which they're calling "Monument Street." This would provide a cut-through to Cushing Street (and eventually perhaps to First, Van, and South Capitol as well), and is also being used as a design feature to break up what is currently a 600-foot-long block; and creating it also allows for additional high-value corner retail spaces than if the block weren't broken up.
Monument Street will also be the location of the entrance to the 200-room W Aloft hotel, which has only a small frontage on Half Street but then runs in an inverted L across Monument Street and down Cushing Street. Running the rest of the length of Half Street would be a condominium building, which at the corner of Half and N would then meet a rental apartment building that faces the stadium across N Street between Half and Cushing (which as part of this project will be extended through to N Street). The two residential buildings will contain in the neighborhood of 320 units, and there will be a courtyard nestled between the residential and hotel buildings parallel to Half Street. Three levels of underground parking will provide about 520 spaces, and will be entered via Cushing Street.
The ground floors of all of these spaces will be almost completely taken up with retail (except for the entrance to the Metro station and small entrances that lead visitors to the second-floor lobbies of each building), and there will be a mixture of one- and two-level retail spaces. The two-level space at Half and N, directly across from the stadium, is considered to be the most prime location. There will also be a viewing platform above that retail space for residents to be able to look into the stadium.
It is anticipated that Half Street will be closed to vehicular traffic on game days (as will be N Street between Van and 1st), and because of this the design of Half Street is much more like a pedestrian plaza, with no actual curbs but using various landscape and streetscape tricks of the trade to delineate car space versus sidewalk space.
The plan is to start construction as soon as possible (in fact a Building Permit Application for 55 M Street was filed earlier this week), working from north to south, so that the office building would be finished first (Q2 2009) and then the southern portion of the site would come online in Q3 2009. Earlier comments about perhaps getting the underground parking and some of the retail completed by Opening Day 2008 seem to have gone by the wayside, as it was mentioned that the garages and retail would start to open in Spring 2009. Of course, the Navy Yard station expansion (which Monument is overseeing as well) must be done by Opening Day 2008.
As for the hearing itself, commissioners were a bit divided, some hating Monument Street and others liking it, some not being happy with a second-floor hotel lobby while others were more concerned about having as much retail on the ground floor as possible. They were happy to hear that there is no more parking than the minimum required by law, as apparently the commission feels strongly about not having an overabundance of parking right above a Metro station.
The Office of Planning and the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation both are supporting the application, though OP indicated there is still some work to be done to address their concerns. Also there apparently was a letter from DDOT detailing an almost comically long list of items that they'd like to see incorporated. Monument and DDOT are still needing to meet to discuss those, as well as the streetscape and lighting designs.
Monument indicated that it is needing to move forward with all deliberate haste (especially given the cast-in-stone deadline of getting the Metro station ready by April 2008), and in fact they asked to have the ZC vote on approval be scheduled for Feb. 12. There were a number of issues that the commissioners asked to have addressed in additional submittals, so there will be some midnight oil burned to meet that Feb. 12 date. But I didn't get the feeling that the commission was particularly negative about the project, and certainly weren't hostile. (I'm skipping the minutiae of requested exceptions and reliefs, if that's of great interest to you, you should have watched your own self!)
Worn out yet? Imagine how I feel having had to watch it all! But soothe your soul by going to look at the cruddy versions of the renderings I've posted, and hopefully before long the Gods will smile on me and send me real purty versions of the images I can use instead.
 

Dear Office of Zoning: I like you guys, I really do. All your transcripts and orders are online, and you're pretty good with putting meeting information on the web in a timely fashion (though I can still dream of the day when applicant submittals are all posted as PDFs). But this new calendar you've come up with, it's a travesty, and I say that not just as a member of the public and a user, but as a web application developer. Instead of the old calendar, where you can easily look at an entire month's worth of agendas on one screen, we're now forced to click on each meeting's entry and wait for a god-awful-slow pop-up window to appear (we're talking 5-plus seconds, and that's even after you realize you have to double-click and not single-click the calendar entry, though it loads faster if you go directly to the URL instead of having to click the calendar and get a pop-up); and then the pop-up we've waited on so long is a huge window with a tremendous amount of wasted space telling me a small piece of information. This, my noble public servants, is absolutely rotten design. The old calendar may not have been flashy, but it works and works fast. This new way makes it nearly unusable. Please give some thought, at the very least, to an alternate view that maintains the old list method of getting to the information--clearly you've gone to a database-driven app, which in and of itself is fine (believe me, I know a thing or two about databases), but it's not that hard to spit out records in list form. Or, beyond that, you could start an e-mail list that e-mails out your agendas and calendar changes, like other agencies. Because those of us who spend a lot of time alerting the public to the good work you do are going to stop doing so if we can't easily get to your information. Either that or I'm going to tell Mayor Fenty on you, and then you'll REALLY be in trouble. Love, JD.
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Today I was able to take some photos from up high at the Courtyard by Marriott--since it was a clear day, I could indeed see forever. First off, with the Capper/Carrollsburg demolition west of 5th Street now complete, I've posted before-and-after photos of the Capper footprint that illustrate the astonishing difference 10 months and six blocks' worth of demolition can make; this page also has new photos as you scroll down showing ground-level shots of the final demolished block north of K between 2nd and 3rd. Next are photos-from-above of the holes in the ground at 70/100 I and 100 M/Onyx, with comparison shots from last year (scroll down a bit from the top of the page). And, if you can bear to scroll ALL the way to the bottom, I have views of the Nats ballpark construction from this Courtyard vantage point--it's pretty much like looking into the stadium from dead center field, except four blocks away. And, at the top of the Capper Seniors page, there's a neat shot of all three Capper Seniors buildings. Alas, now I will have to return to taking boring street-level shots for a while....
 

Apparently the sign announcing construction on the South Capitol Street Bridge has reappeared, and I'm hearing that this is the beginning of the rehab work on the existing bridge. (No, not the construction of the new one, that won't begin before 2011!) There won't be lane closures right away, but look for some probably on weekends in the near future. DDOT hasn't yet posted anything about it on its web site--when they do, I'll post, of course.
 

Here's an interesting bit of political maneuvering.... From the Examiner:
"D.C. City Council Member Jack Evans, D-Ward 2 [...], who chairs the finance and revenue committee, introduced legislation Tuesday called the National Capital Revitalization Corporation and Anacostia Waterfront Corporation Reorganization Act of 2007. The bill seeks to transfer the assets of both organizations back to the District and would revert all of their power to the mayor's office. Council Member David Catania, I-at large, signed on as a co-sponsor.
"Catania and Evans complained the agencies have become barriers to getting things done in the District, saying the organizations have too often clashed or engaged in what Evans referred to as 'turf wars.' Evans also accused the agencies of being unresponsive to the council, adding that the legislative body should have more oversight."
We'll have to watch how this unfolds, I think it's very interesting that Jack Evans is the one who introduced it. I'd link to the bill, but it's not in the council's online legislation system yet.

 

Thanks to correspondent Garrett for passing this along--next Tuesday (Jan. 16), Nexus Gold Club will be auctioning off all its fixtures, furniture, and equipment, followed by its coveted nude dancing license (one of only 20 remaining in DC, with no new ones being created anymore). The auction is being held at the club, 900 First Street, starting at 11 am. From the license auction page: "It should be noted that this year, the Seller has successfully relocated his other nude dancing license and intends to reopen the Nexus Gold Club at the new location." The Nexus has closed to make way for 909 New Jersey Ave., JPI's 244-unit residential tower that is supposed to start construction soon.
 

News from last night's ANC 6D and Zoning Commission meetings:
ANC 6D and Monument Realty finally reached an agreement on a community benefits package as part of Monument's request for support for its 55 M Street mixed-use project; in it, Monument agrees to a) give preference to ANC 6D residents in the lottery for the project's affordable housing units, b) make a $50,000 donation to be shared between Jefferson and Amidon schools, and c) make a $10,000 donation to a local scholarship fund. There was some grumbling from the audience that Bowden Elementary was left out, but the commissioners made assurances that with all the other projects coming down the ANC 6D pike, Bowden will not be forgotten. With the benefits agreement reached, the ANC then voted to support Monument's zoning review this Thursday night.
At the Zoning Commission meeting, the planned vote on the Florida Rock 2nd Stage PUD was delayed until next month. There were also three votes on amendments to the Capitol Gateway Zoning Overlay: Case 06-25, expanding the Overlay boundaries, was approved and sent onto the National Capital Planning Commission, with final ZC action probably coming in the spring; and final approvals were given to Case 05-10 (a series of additions and amendments to the Overlay) and Case 06-20 (an amendment officially allowing the WMATA bus lot formerly at Half and O to be moved to Buzzards Point).
And thankfully none of this prevented me from watching my Gators destroy Ohio State! That was the best part of all!

 

I am trying soooooooooo hard to not get sucked into tracking the goings-on at Poplar Point, but I know that a lot of visitors to this site are very interested in what's going on just across the river from Near Southeast. So once again I'm posting a few items of interest, with the disclaimer that you shouldn't depend on me for up-to-the-minute Poplar Point news, and that maybe some enterprising soul will start an East of the River blog that I can happily point people to. Anyway, yesterday brought the official announcement that Victor MacFarlane, whose MacFarlane Partners company owns a 25% stake in the Southeast Federal Center redevelopment, has partnered with other investors to purchase DC United's operating rights, and to build the team a new stadium at Poplar Point and develop the land around it. The team is hoping to get a new stadium built by the 2009 season (!), but no one's officially announced any proposals for how a stadium will be paid for. In the meantime, the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, which is overseeing the redevelopment of Poplar Point, has announced a January 20 Ward 8 Public Meeting about the plans for the site. And now you're all charged with going out and learning more about it on your own :-).
 

The Post gives front-page focus to the Anacostia River, the city's hopes and plans for its revitalization, and the realities of how polluted the river actually is in "Polluted Waters Stain DC's Shining Vision": "The Anacostia River, planned as the scenic centerpiece of massive redevelopment in the District, remains heavily polluted by sewage, trash and toxic chemicals, environmentalists say -- and it might be years before the river's health catches up with its new cachet. In the city's plans, the Anacostia will soon be surrounded by a necklace of new stadiums, office buildings, condominiums and parks. A river that has come to symbolize neglect, both of its water and of the neighborhoods near its banks, will become a new hub of urban life. But that bright vision is hard to square with the Anacostia of the present. Its channels are choked with mud and floating debris. Its catfish have tumors on their livers and lips. And, dozens of times a year, it actually stinks, from human waste dumped out by the District's sewer system. Now, activists wonder whether a dirty river will start to hold this development back. Or maybe, they hope, all this building will speed the Anacostia's recovery by making activists out of people who are seeing its plight for the first time."
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After a little more than two years of off-and-on demolition work spanning all or part of 10 city blocks, the last of the Capper/Carrollsburg residential buildings between 2nd and 5th streets came down today. It was on the north side of K Street between 2nd and 3rd, on a block that eventually will be home to a six-story mixed-income apartment building. I've updated my Demolished Buildings page to include these last Capper buildings, and within the next day or so I'll update the Capper photo page with new shots of the empty landscape--being able to see the DOT building from 3rd Street north of the freeway was a strange site today.
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I'm pleased to announce the posting of my 2007 State of the Hood, a detailed narrative of the changes we've seen in Near Southeast in 2006, plus what's on the boards for 2007. If you're somewhat new to tracking Near Southeast, this is a good primer on where the neighborhood currently stands; if you've been following my site closely, you'll probably already know most of what's there, but it never hurts to repackage my overabundance of information in yet another format.

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A nice pick-me-up on this dreary Monday morning--the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation has unveiled a redesigned web site, and it's certainly more pleasing to the eye. There's a page listing all of their projects, including pages on the South Capitol Waterfront & Ballpark District and Washington Canal Park in Near Southeast as well as the Southwest Waterfront, Poplar Point, Hill East, Kingman Island, and others. One new item from the South Capitol page, that the 40,000-sq-ft public plaza we've started hearing about planned for the foot of First Street at the waterfront will include a new ferry pier. Lots of people interested in the ballpark and Near Southeast in general have been wondering whether ferry/water taxi options would be incorporated, and I had always seen general discussions that they would, but this is the first specific description I've seen for a planned location of such a pier. Yay! (But I'm guessing we won't be seeing it by Opening Day 2008.) For more information (what little I have) on the First Street Plaza, see my Florida Rock page (whose developers have pledged $3.7 million toward the plaza's design and implementation costs, for what is expected to be a $15 million project); my Canal Park page has info and photos on that project as well.
 

Just a small heads up to highlight some Near Southeast items on this week's calendar: on Monday (Nov. 8), ANC 6D is having its monthly meeting (now at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church at 8th 6th and M SW). The agenda has not yet been posted, but I do hear that the continuing fight over the Monument Realty request for support for its alley closings at Half and M is again on the schedule--which is kind of interesting, given that the alley closings became law back in December; there are mumblings I guess about holding up Monument's zoning application, but who knows what's actually going to happen. Also on Monday night is a Zoning Commission meeting, where the vote on the Florida Rock 2nd Stage PUD is scheduled to be held. (Note that the vote on the 250 M Street PUD/Overlay Review was originally scheduled for this meeting, but has been delayed to Feb. 12.) And then, rounding out the week's zoning festivities, Monument will present its Half Street office/hotel/residential project to the ZC on Thursday evening. Note that both the Monday and Thursday ZC meetings are available via live webcast; I may actually be watching Monday's ZC webcast on my PDA while attending the ANC meeting, which is just wrong on so many levels. And, to make it worse, these two meetings will no doubt require me to time-shift my watching of the Ohio State-Florida game, so no one spoil the result for me (Go Gators! UF '87). The sacrifices I make.... UPDATE: Oops, forgot to mention that tonight's (Jan. 8) Zoning meeting is also scheduled to include votes on proposed text amendments to the Capitol Gateway Overlay (cases 05-10 and 06-25).
 

UPDATE, 1/5: Adding a link to this piece in today's WashTimes on the Anacostia trolley pilot, which doesn't include much new info, but the Bloomberg piece linked to below has disappeared, so this is good to have; in the meantime, be sure to ignore other pieces like this one that try yet again to say that the Bolling line will connect riders to the baseball stadium by 2008, which is just patently false.
Hat tip to the CHT Shareholder Community blog for finding this Bloomberg article, "Washington Trolleys Go Back on Track in Mass Transit Encore," which discusses the plans that have been in the works since 2003 to bring light rail to DC. One thing that the article doesn't quite make clear--when it's talking about building the first 2-mile line (describing it as "pass[ing] near the Washington Nationals' new downtown ballpark"), it's glossing over the fact that this test line is being built in Anacostia, along the east side of the river, whereas Near Southeast and the stadium are on the west side of the river. You can go to the DC Transit Future web site to learn more about the Anacostia Streetcar Project (the test line) and about the long-range plans. The planned corridors do include M Street SE, the 11th Street Bridges, and South Capitol Street. But this project has had many delays over the years (see my first post on it, from October 2003), the Anacostia test line is already at least three years behind schedule; but at least back in October the Transportation Planning Board allotted $3 million to the Anacostia Streetcar Study and added the first phase of construction to the Constrained Long Range Plan, so it's finally getting some funding. But, In other words, don't plan on buying your tokens just yet :-).
 

From the Dec. 28 issue of Voice of the Hill (PDF only, see page 13): "[...] Southeast Waterfront property owners have embarked on the creation of a [Business Improvement District] to serve their rapidly developing area." What exactly is a BID? "BIDs are geographic areas in which the majority of property owners agree to a supplementary real property tax that goes toward special services, beyond what's provided by the city. Services typical include cleaning, security, hospitality, marketing, and business development. BIDs also address issues like transportation, access, parking, infrastructure, and homelessness in their realms." The BID would cover basically all of Near Southeast (from the Freeway to the river, and from South Capitol Street to the 11th Street Bridges); the Navy Yard, while not an official member, would collaborate on some initiatives. As for when this would take place? "Legislation for the proposed Southeast Waterfront BID should be submitted to the DC Council and the Office of the Mayor for review by late January. It is anticipated that the BID will become operational upon approval of the legislation in late April or early May." There are five other BIDs already in place in DC, including DowntownDC.org and the Golden Triangle BID.

 

Adding to the projects that look to be starting in 2007, it appears that the 1111 New Jersey Avenue office building being developed by Donohoe is moving forward--they've recently applied for a zoning special exception ("for a waiver of the rear yard requirement"), which has been added to the Bureau of Zoning Adjustment's May 8 agenda. This is slated to be a 146,000-sq-ft, 12-story project with ground-floor retail, and I've heard tell that they're planning a mid-2007 start date. It will be on the land between the Navy Yard Metro station entrance at New Jersey and M and St. Matthew's Baptist Church at L Street (St. Matthew's is not being demolished)--and no, it won't be built up on the grassy hill, they'll dig down to street level! This will make the third project underway on what is known as Square 743N, along with the 100 M Street office building and the Onyx on First residential tower on the other side of the block, along 1st Street.

 

Thanks to sharp-eyed correspondent John for noticing a tidbit buried in the January Hill Rag (not yet online), which I've also found in this December 12 press release from the Mayor's Office discussing the new forensics lab that the city is going to start building in 2008 at 4th and E, SW: "Ultimately, more than 500 District employees will work at the 300,000 square foot building which currently houses a DC Fire station and a Metropolitan Police Division headquarters. The fire station will be reconstructed at the site as a part of the new building, and the MPD Division headquarters will be relocated to leased facilities at 225 Virginia Avenue, SE." This is the old Washington Star/Post printing plant that sits next to the freeway. I can't tell you anything more than this--the press release says that construction at the 4th Street SW site is supposed to begin in 2008 and last until 2010, I don't know when they plan to move the District Station. More as I get it. (This is the main 1st District Station, by the way--not the substation at 5th and E SE.)
 

Slightly off-topic, but if you're a DC blogger, you're invited to the Washington Post Blogger Summit, Jan. 9 from 6 to 9 pm. Here's a DCist post with the information and RSVP address.
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How's that hangover? Let's start the year off with this link to the Post's "A Family Company, Forest City, Sets Out to Transform the District", a profile of Forest City Enterprises, the Cleveland-based company that "owns about 90 acres at three major Southwest and Southeast projects where it plans to invest roughly $3 billion into a mix of parks, housing, shops, restaurants and offices. And it is one of the developers working on transforming the land around the new baseball stadium -- now mostly boarded-up storefronts, car-repair garages and nightclubs -- into a vibrant neighborhood." There's not anything that qualifies as new info in the piece, but it's a good summary piece of the developments Forest City is involved in. Its biggest project in Near Southeast is the Southeast Federal Center, where "[o]ver the next decade, Forest City plans to build an almost $2 billion development of 6 million square feet -- a space almost as large as the Pentagon. Its plans call for preserving the historic buildings and turning a boilermaker shop into a retail area, creating apartments from a former carpentry building and converting an old gun mount factory into condominiums. It will also put in streets, offices, lofts and waterfront parks. In tribute to its Navy history, the project will be called the Yards." Forest City is also behind the revitalization of Capper/Carrollsburg, and, although not mentioned in the article, is likely to be one of the companies who get to redevelop the WASA site across from the stadium (if the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation can ever finish that land negotiation). And, outside my purview, they're also part of the team redeveloping Waterside Mall in Southwest. One interesting quote about the Southeast Federal Center project, from Deborah Ratner Salzberg, head of the company's DC operations: "It really will be a mixed environment that looks like it's been here forever. It won't look like Disneyland. It will be a little edgy and have the feel of the waterfront." Can't wait to see some specific plans; the company has announced in recent months that the first projects on the site are to get underway in 2007, so hopefully we don't have to wait much longer for some concrete information.

 

As we slide into the New Year's weekend, I'm bringing 2006 to a close with a pile of new photos. The most comprehensive update would be on my Department of Transportation HQ page, with updated photos from almost every angle, including the not-yet-open-to-the-public views from the south side of the project, along Tingey Street. And I had a lovely time on Christmas Eve morning being briefly detained by security and then escorted off the premises, so I hope you appreciate my sacrifice. I also updated all the 20 M Street shots, as workers have switched into a high gear to have the building ready for a Spring 2007 delivery. The demolition work on the last Capper block has brought some new photos to the Capper Apartments page (updated since yesterday), and my wanderings around the Capper footprint made me also add some new shots to the Capitol Quarter page and even at the bottom of the main Capper/Carrollsburg Overview page. Then I had to go take a few new Nationals ballpark shots (yes, new just since Christmas Eve). Then, because I never want to be accused of ignoring a construction site, I've even posted fabulously exciting pictures of the excavated holes at 70/100 I and 100 M/Onyx. And sprinkled two new M Street images, too. The beloved icon is your guide to all the latest, of course. And I hope to have another big update early in 2007 with some new overhead shots, once the Capper demolition is complete. In the meantime, enjoy this overwhelming bounty.
 
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