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909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
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US DOT HQ ('07)
20 M ('07)
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I've been flying a bit blind for the past couple of weeks when it comes to reading the tea leaves on new projects, because the New Building Permits daily feed that the DC government started last year has decided to take a breather, with no new information since the end of December. There's still the old-fashioned PDF weekly update list, but it doesn't include some of the types of permits that the feed had been including, not to mention the fact that as of this week it's 270 pages long, and can't easily be filtered like the feed to just show Near Southeast data. (Waaah!) And e-mails and questions to CapStat about the state of this feed and other issues go perpetually unanswered (Waaah! again).
Given all of this, I can only very belatedly pass on that in early January the first building permits were approved for 10 townhouses in the Capitol Quarter mixed-income project--the approved houses are on the 300 block of Virginia Avenue, which is interesting given that this is not where they plan on building the first units (along 4th and 5th Streets south of K); I imagine those approvals are not far behind, given that construction is supposed to start in the spring.
As for one of the other feeds, the list of Service Requests--where you can see when people have complained about illegally parked cars, or streetlights not working, or rats needing to be controlled--has been put on hiatus until they do some reworking of the database, with an estimated return date of March 2007. At least they told us this one was going away for a bit.
UPDATE: Surprisingly, my whining above about the Building Permits feed and the lack of response from the folks who run it got noticed by the right people (thanks to the link from DCBlogs, I think), and they say they're aware of the issue. Hopefully it'll get back on track soon.
More posts: Capper, Capitol Quarter
 

Monument Realty has created a web site for its mixed-use project on Half Street in the Ballpark District, dubbed HalfStreetDC.com. Not a lot of info there right now (at least nothing that JDLand devotees don't already know!), but there's a contact form to fill out if you're interested in getting information from them as the project progresses. There's also a spiffy rendering showing their vision for Half Street, as seen (I believe) from N Street looking north toward M. They were also kind enough to pass along to me a nice version of the rendering of the 55 M Street office building that will sit atop the expanded Navy Yard Metro station, and I've added that to my Monument Half Street page as well. (I had a cruddy version of this same rendering posted for the past week or so, nice to replace it with something decent!) My post from last week about the zoning hearing on this project also has more information.
 

I almost forgot my own anniversary! It was on January 19, 2003 (a beautifully clear but cold day) that I made Mr. JD drive me around Near Southeast while I shot a bunch of pictures out the passenger window, which I then posted on the web to show the two or three people who visited JDLand. Little did I know that that little excursion would turn into the monster time-waster that we all know and love today as the Near Southeast DC Redevelopment web site. Here are pictures that I took on that day, and you can see how some locations have changed a lot, but how many others still look pretty much the same. We'll see what those look like four years from now, I guess (if I'm not renting a suite at St. Elizabeth's by that point).
As for the site itself, it wasn't much at the beginning, but by late 2003 it had found the basic look-and-feel that continues to this day. But maybe it's gotten just a touch more in-depth since then, thanks not only to my obsessive-compulsiveness but also my desire to demonstrate to people the possibilities of "hyperlocal" web sites.
Finally, this is also a day for me to say a big thanks to everyone who visits the site, and I hope that you continue to find it useful (or at least slightly entertaining) in the future....

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Yesterday there was a status hearing before the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in reference to the liquor license application by the owners of the Star Market, better known as the "Little Red Building" on the corner of 2nd and L streets (next to the Courtyard by Marriott). I wasn't at the hearing, and admittedly am not following this particularly closely, but I've been told that the parties on both sides (the license applicants and the people who've been registered in opposition) have been ordered to attend a mediation session that should happen sometime before the application's next status hearing, scheduled for Feb. 28.
 

(A news item for the three of you who aren't horrifically tired of Navy Yard Metro station expansion groundbreaking news items, a group which doesn't even include me by this point.) If you have cable TV in DC, you can see last Tuesday's station groundbreaking ceremony on DC Cable 16 Friday night at 9:30 pm and at various times over the next week or so.
More posts: Metro/WMATA, staddis
 

From DDOT:
"As part of ongoing improvements to the Frederick Douglass Bridge (sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge), the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) will perform periodic off-peak bridge maintenance repairs beginning Friday, January 26, 2007.
"These periodic weekend repairs include expansion joint replacement and under-the-bridge steel repair work. Work will also involve painting and replacing handrails and installation of new lighting.
"Due to the nature of these repairs, DDOT will temporarily close the northbound/inbound lanes starting at 10 am on January 26. The lanes will reopen on Monday, January 29 by 4 am--in time for morning rush hour. During the closure, inbound drivers will follow signed detours on I-295 North to the 11th Street Bridge providing direct access into the District.
"DDOT encourages the use of Metro as a transportation alternative. Pedestrian and bike access will remain on the bridge during the weekend closures. All closures may be subject to change and are weather permitting. In the event of inclement weather, lane closures will be rescheduled to the following weekend."
 

In the past four years, I've posted a heck of a lot of photos of Near Southeast on this site. (Though it's only a fraction of the number of photos I've taken of Near Southeast in the past four years.) As projects move forward, I tend to continue to display the oldest photos of a location but then pair them with newer photos as the landscape changes. The photos that "age off" a project page are still on my site, they're just not easily visible--until now, thanks to the new Near Southeast Photo Archive. You can either use this map to choose an intersection and compass direction to view ("show me all pictures at New Jersey and M looking northward"), or you can watch for the new Click to see all available photos of this location. icon now available throughout the project pages, which you can click on to see the archive of all photos at that particular location (like, say, South Capitol and P Street looking east-northeastward, which provides you with a pretty cool month-by-month photo timeline of the stadium construction). Be sure to read all my caveats detailing the many ways that this app isn't perfect, but I've always struggled with a way to harness the bazillion photos on the site without making the project pages any more unwieldy than they already are, and I think this is a good step; and I may now start to upload more photos even if they don't make it onto a project page, just to flesh out some intersections that aren't well represented on the site. Again, look for the Click to see all available photos of this location. icon to access the archive, and let me know what you think.
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Jack Evans's office was kind enough to pass along a copy of the bill he introduced (along with David Catania) to abolish the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the National Capital Revitalization Corporation. There's no hearing date set yet, I'll let you know whenever I hear about it.
 

Thanks to correspondent John for passing along news that slipped through (no advisories from Metro or the Mayor's office, darn them!). Tuesday (Jan. 16) at 10 am Mayor Fenty will be making remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Navy Yard Metro station's expansion project. This is to increase the station's capacity from 5,000 riders an hour to 15,000, and is to be finished by Opening Day 2008, while work continues above it on Monument Realty's mixed-use project along Half Street. And maybe after the mayor's remarks, everyone can parade over en masse to the Nexus Gold Club auction. (And I do see now that the event is buried on the Mayor's schedule. I thought that religiously checking the News Releases and the Advisories was good enough, alas.)
UPDATE, 1/16: Here's Metro's press release summarizing today's event.
UPDATE II: There's also now a post on the Post's DC Wire blog (I know, it stunned me, too) about the groundbreaking, and some background on how exactly the $20 million to cover the station expansion was found; I imagine this will be similar to whatever story is in tomorrow's paper, though hopefully without the somewhat misleading "More DC Stadium Spending Woes" title. ("Woe" would be if the station weren't expanded before Opening Day; paying for it is just a shell game that governments go through all the time, and it's not like it really has anything to do with the stadium itself.)
UPDATE III: If you want video, here's WJLA's report on the event.
UPDATE, 1/17: And we'll bring this linkathon to a close with the Examiner story on the groundbreaking and the expansion.
 

As I posted last week, the Nexus Gold Club is auctioning off its furnishings and, more interestingly, its nude dancing license tomorrow (Tuesday), and today the Post picks up the story. One piece of news, JPI says that the demolition of the site (which will eventually be home to the 909 New Jersey Avenue residential project) will begin in March. On the same page as the Post story, there's also a box with a short piece on the surprising move by Jack Evans reported last week to abolish both the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the NCRC. UPDATE: Here's an Examiner article noting that Tommy Wells, the new Ward 6 council member whose district includes a lot of the Anacostia Waterfront, is "not convinced that legislation proposed Tuesday to dissolve a District organization charged with the redevelopment of the Anacostia River's waterfront is the best way to proceed. [...] Wells campaigned in part on redeveloping the Anacostia's waterfront into a walkable community for families, with green space, shops and restaurants. He said Friday he wondered whether putting Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration in charge of redeveloping the waterfront now is prudent considering his desire to take over the District's schools."
UPDATE, 1/16: The Post reports that no one ended up bidding on the Nexus nude dancing license, perhaps because the minimum required bid was set at $2 million. But they have a cute little sidebar noting the prices that some of the furnishings went for--the 13-foot brass dancing poles went for $50.
UPDATE, 1/17: Oops, I dropped a rather important part of the Tommy Wells quote above. He is quoted as saying he is "not convinced" the legislation is the best way to proceed.
 

No doubt there will be more official announcements coming from DDOT, but in my quest to get you information lickety-split, I point you to this post on the MPD 1D message board: "The Frederick Douglass Bridge main span and approach ramps will undergo significant repair work during this year, effective this month. Repair work consists of steel repairs, deck joint replacement, concrete repairs and painting of bridge thus these repairs necessitate the closure of the bridge which will effect the ingress and egress of DC residents, DC govt employees. Traffic will be advised by a Changeable Message Sign Board daily that drivers should use the 11th St. Bridge as a major detour route during times the Douglas bridge is closed. The following schedule has been tentatively put out -- please share with coworkers, neighbors." It shows scheduled weekend closures (from Fridays at 10 pm to Mondays at 4 am) on various dates starting Jan. 26, and also mentions that the entire span will be closed from after July 4 through the end of August--I believe (but do not know with 100% certainty) this will be the dismantling of the viaduct so that the bridge exit onto South Capitol Street reaches street level at Potomac Avenue rather than O Street. As I said, I know more will be coming from DDOT, and I'll post it as soon as I have it. I'll also put all the scheduled closures on my Calendar of Events once they come from DDOT.

 

The weather wasn't really optimum for picture taking on Saturday, but that didn't stop me from making the circuit, so treat yourself to a whole new batch of Nats Ballpark Construction photos. There's even a few from new angles, some of which you might find surprising.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

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.
More posts:
 

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 :-).
 
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