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Sometime within the last few weeks another of the auto repair shops along First Street closed; this time it's the United Transmission Center, at 1004 First (the red brick building at right in these photos). The property was bought in September by Akridge, but the company hasn't announced any plans for the 11,000 sq ft of land it now owns on the east side of First (it doesn't own the Market Deli on the south end, nor the two other garages on the north end, but now owns everything in between). See my North of M map to see what's on the boards in the section of Near Southeast north of M and west of New Jersey--lots of land now owned by developers, but still waiting to see plans begin to move forward on most of the lots. UPDATE: I should note that the garage has moved to a new location in Northeast, so it hasn't shut down altogether.
 

The architects of the Florida Rock project (Davis Buckley Architects and Planners) have generously passed along an updated "map" showing the layout of the 5.8-acre site that sits between the Nationals ballpark and the Anacostia River. The project will have 600,000 sq ft office space, 92,000 sq ft retail, 160 residential units, and a 235-room hotel, spread across four buildings. There will also be a waterfront esplanade, and the eastern edge of the site (where a big portion of the retail will be located on multiple glassed-in floors) will be the western border of the new 39,000-sq-ft First Street Plaza that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation is planning for the foot of First Street. The Zoning Commission is scheduled to vote on the Florida Rock second-stage PUD on Feb. 12; the project would take a number of years to be completed, but hopes are that construction would begin on the eastern portion in early 2008. And stay tuned, there hopefully will be new renderings of the buildings themselves within the next few weeks.

 

Two City Council hearings of interest to Near Southeast were announced in this week's DC Register: on March 13, the Committee on Economic Development (Nice web site, Kwame! Well played!) will have a public hearing on Bill B17-0022, "National Capital Revitalization Corporation and Anacostia Waterfront Corporation Reorganization Act of 2007"; and, two days later, on March 15, the Committee on Economic Develoment and the Committee of the Whole will hold a joint public hearing on B17-0011, "Ballpark Hard and Soft Costs Cap Act of 2007" and B17-0021, "Ballpark Parking Completion Amendment Act of 2007." These two bills are the permanent versions of the acts passed in late 2006. Read the hearing notices for more details.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

I've now posted PDFs of some of the Monument Realty submissions to the Zoning Commission for the January 11 public hearing on their Half Street/Ballpark District mixed-use project: you can grab yourself a really large, strong cup of coffee and peruse the opening statement (1 MB), the traffic study (3.7 MB, which I linked to a few days ago) or the architectural drawings (13.7 MB). I've also snagged the best of the renderings and added them to my Monument Half Street page. It's expected that the Zoning Commission will vote on this project at its February 12 public meeting, when zoning approval votes are also expected on the 250 M Street and Florida Rock projects. UPDATE: For those who aren't well-versed in the zoning process, I should emphasize that these are the submittal documents--at the public hearings, zoning commissioners ask questions and request clarifications and sometimes modifications, and so what will be voted on isn't necessarily what's seen here. But it's better than nothing!
 

Word is starting to dribble in to JDLand about scheduled move-in dates at the new US Department of Transportation HQ. With 7,000 employees relocating to the M Street Monolith, one can imagine that all the moving trucks aren't going to be showing up on the same day. It looks like, as expected, the moves will begin in April (for instance, the Federal Transit Administration is scheduled to move April 28-29). If you're a DOT worker and have received word of when your agency/administration is coming to Near Southeast, feel free to drop me a line with the specifics.
 

The US Navy Museum has announced its February lineup of seminars, lectures, concerts, and kids offerings, which I've added to my Upcoming Events Calendar. And, for those of you keeping track of the blog via RSS, I'm going to experiment with including the calendar in the feed. It gets updated pretty frequently (I can't stand a messy calendar with out-of-date entries), so this is just a test to see whether it's a good addition or just incredibly annoying. Apologies in advance if there's some kinks.
More posts: Navy Yard
 

Wednesday's Post reports that, despite being stripped of piles and piles of earmarks, the $463 million federal spending bill working its way through Congress includes the $20 million needed to fund the upgrades to the Navy Yard Metro station. Which just goes to show, earmarks are only evil when they aren't YOUR pet projects.
More posts: Metro/WMATA, staddis
 

Not really anything newsy in these pieces, but there was decent coverage of a stop at the new ballpark by members of the Nationals--see the Washington Times (a news story and a Thom Loverro column focusing on the construction workers), the Post, the Fredericksburg News-Star, and MLB.com. It's all kind of dog-bites-man: the stadium remains on schedule.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

The February Hill Rag has an article about the "complex challenges" of traffic management facing Near Southeast and Southwest as development projects come online over the next few years--including, of course, the new ballpark, which will draw 40,000 fans 80 times a year. The DC Sports and Entertainment Commission is required to provide a Traffic Operations and Parking Plan by April 30; there will then be community meetings for discussion (lots of it, I imagine) of the plan, though DCSEC takes pains to note that the TOPP is just for game day-related traffic, and not the entire surrounding area's general traffic flow. Ward 6 council member Tommy Wells is working on a gathering of representatives of the usual suspects (agencies, DCSEC, business and property owners [including the Navy], and community members) to work toward coordinating plans and solutions addressing the flow of people in and out of Southeast and Southwest. Even before the arrival of thousands of baseball fans and other neighborhood newcomers (including the 7,000 DOT workers scheduled to arrive in Spring 2007), traffic along South Capitol Street is, shall we say, terrible, so coming up with a solution will be an interesting challenge.
If you're interested in traffic issues, you might also want to look at this Transportation Impact Study (PDF, 3.6 MB; for a taste, here's the introduction and conclusions) of the area bounded by South Capitol, First, M, and N streets submitted by Monument Realty as part of its Dec. 2006 Zoning Commission filings for the 55 M Street project (which I just got my paws on). While it primarily deals with Squares 700 and 701, section 5 of the study also has an analysis of projected ballpark weekday evening traffic in 2008. For more background (from a government source), you can also go back and read the 2004 South Capitol Gateway Corridor and Anacostia Access Study prepared by DDOT.
(On another subject, there's also an article in this issue on the soccer stadium and Poplar Point, for those who are interested in that project....)
[Entry UPDATED to add the complete Monument transportation study document.]
 

Saturday was a picture-perfect day, so I attempted to take some perfect pictures. (Not sure I succeeded, but oh well.) I've updated the Stadium Construction Gallery from the usual vantage points, and took some additional photos of South Capitol Street and the areas near the portions of the Douglass Bridge scheduled to be demolished this summer--and thanks to the inbound lanes being closed, I was able to take some shots that normally would require snapping them from a moving car, since I prefer not to execute deathwish darts into traffic (I do however send my thanks to the concerned motorist driving southbound who started honking hysterically at the site of me climbing over the kneewall into the closed traffic lanes).
I've also been making a slow slog through the online Near Southeast Photo Archive, trying to make sure that all angles of intersections are well-represented, so I shot a lot of 3rd Street vistas today; if you're so inclined, take a wander through the 3rd and 4th Street archives (just click on the map to choose an intersection) to see these updates, and also note that you can now see my shots along Tingey Street and from across the Anacostia River looking north as well, to see what lurks behind the DOT HQ. Over the coming weeks I'll be working on doing the same for more streets.
Normally at this point I'd send you through a list of the pages where I've posted new photos, and tell you to look for the ubiquitous icon, but thanks to the Photo Archive app, I can now easily display all pictures I took and posted today. You'll see intersections and directions underlined, if you want to see all the photos in the archive of that location, just click on the link.
 

Within the past week, two of the unoccupied buildings in the blocks just north the stadium site were demolished: 1236 South Capitol, that funky neon-yellow bungalow sandwiched between the BP gas station and the Public Storage Building, and 1201 Cushing, a little white ramshackle building behind a wooden fence that you would never have seen unless you ventured down Cushing south of M. (In fact, *I* had never seen it until late last year.) The South Capitol Street site is being cleared so that the WMATA employee parking lot that was just moved a few hundred feet south from next to the Navy Yard Metro Half Street entrance can be relocated again (see my entry about this from back in November). The Cushing lot is the first demolition as the land gets cleared for Monument Realty's Half Street mixed-use project (55 M Street et al). These have now been added to the top of my Demolished Builings Gallery; and if you scroll down the page a good ways, you'll see two additional icons. First, I realized that I needed to include the little building demolished sometime in 2005 that was attached to the west side of Nation; then, while browsing through my photos, I found out that not only had the empty lot on the west side of the Good N Plenty carryout at Half and N contained a rowhouse within the relatively recent past, but that I actually had one photo of it, so it's added to the Gallery now as well. I imagine the Demolished Buildings page is going to get a pretty good workout over the next few weeks. UPDATE: Fixed the bad Demolished Buildings Gallery link. Oops.
 

There doesn't appear to be anything Near Southeast-related on the agenda, but I'll still note that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation Public Board Meeting is scheduled for 5:30 pm tomorrow (Monday), at 5:30 pm at the Courtyard by Marriott at New Jersey and L. Of course, if you obsessively check my Calendar of Events, you knew this already!
 

At yesterday's WMATA board meeting, approval was given to begin working on the replacement of the Southeastern Bus Garage, the red brick building on the southwest corner of Half and M. They've established a $500,000 budget for a three-month feasibility study, which will evaluate the DC government's preferred relocation site for the garage, within DC Village, as well as the possibility of creating an interim facility at the site for an "early relocation." The budget for this is being funded by the sale in October of the parking lot across Half Street to Monument Realty. The bus garage site is one that Monument has been negotiating for, so that it can be the sole developer of that entire block of Half Street. As for the fate of the bus garage building itself, I don't know anything one way or the other, except that during Monument's Zoning Commission testimony two weeks ago, mention was made by Monument's consultant that there are "historic preservation issues" with the bus garage, with what I interpreted as an intimation that whatever is planned for the west side of Half Street will not move forward with the same amount of speed as is seen on the east side. I imagine it will end up at the very least that the facade of the garage will be saved--and it is indeed a pretty cool building, as far as garages go (though It'll be cooler once there aren't Metro buses all around it, though).
 

Since they aren't operating in Near Southeast anymore, I'm not tracking them, but for those who are still interested, here's a good roundup by the Metro Weekly on what the owners of the Nexus, Wet/Edge, and the O Street nightclubs are up to in terms of finding new venues.
More posts:
 

Today's Post has a big cool graphic showing exactly how the Frederick Douglass Bridge is going to get renovated this summer, with 800 feet of the South Capitol Street viaduct being demolished completely north of Potomac Avenue and another 580 feet of the bridge lowered so that the bridge meets street level at Potomac Avenue instead of O Street. It also shows that there will be new stop lights on South Capitol at Potomac Avenue and at N Street, and pedestrian-activated lights at O and P streets. The graphic (make sure to look at it, it really is well done) accompanies an article about the bridge's renovation. And remember, the northbound (inbound) lanes of the bridge will be closed starting this Friday at 10 am until Monday the 29th at 4 am. And plan your summer vacation to coincide with July and August, when the bridge will be closed entirely for the lowering. And here are some additional views of the portions of the bridge that will be demolished and lowered. (And I'm realizing I'd better create a Bridge Makeover page to pull these all together in one place!)
UPDATE: Yeah, a new page to track the Bridge Makeover, that's a really good idea.
UPDATE II: Here's DDOT's press release on the rehabilitation of the Douglass Bridge, along with a map of this weekend's detours.
 

From Thursday's Post: "District officials acknowledged yesterday that the city will have to pay more than $18 million to upgrade streets near the Washington Nationals' new stadium, and some council members said the expenditure would push spending on the ballpark beyond the council's $611 million cap. [...] The commission's chief executive, Allen Y. Lew, said that though the stadium is proceeding on schedule for an April 2008 opening, the budget does not include money to handle transportation planning at the 41,000-seat ballpark. Team officials have said smooth access for up to 9,000 motorists driving to each game is critical to the success of the ballpark, along the Anacostia River near the Navy Yard and South Capitol Street." DDOT said in an interview that it has budgeted $18.4 million to widen and repave roads, repair cubs, add traffic lights and signs and plant trees near the ballpark, and that that money was allocated as part of planned upgrade work to the South Capitol Street corridor before the stadium was awarded to Near Southeast in September 2004. All this of course brings the curtain up on yet another round of DC Council Ballpark Kabuki Theater, with anti-stadium forces yammering about the cap being exceeded while pro-stadium forces contending that this doesn't violate the cap. Perhaps they'd prefer to spend Opening Day digging tour buses out of monster potholes on an un-upgraded South Capitol Street.
And, since I'm talking stadium cost cap, I'll finally mention this Examiner article from three weeks ago (Save it for a slow day, I told myself--HAH!) that a deal has now been struck to put artwork on display at the stadium after all, without violating The Sacred Cap (see my entry on the original story from December).
 

Look, kids! Building Permits! (Thank you, CapSTAT.)

More posts:
 

Dr. Gridlock's Get There blog has an entry about the upcoming work on the South Capitol Street/Frederick Douglass Bridge, confirming that as expected the bridge will be closed in July and August to demolish the existing viaduct between Potomac Avenue and O Street, so that drivers coming off the bridge will arrive at street level three blocks further south than they now do. This will give South Capitol Street a much nicer appearance, and will mean that the new Nationals ballpark won't have an ancient bridge ramp rubbing up against its western facade (right now at O Street the viaduct is not much more than about 20 feet from the edge of the stadium). There will also be new signals at some of the intersections. The blog post also mentions the first of the weekend closures of the bridge coming up this weekend, with the inbound lanes closing between 10 am Friday and 4 am Monday, detouring traffic to the 11th Street Bridges. (But alas, the demolishing of the viaduct will take with it two of my favorite stadium photo perches, though at least by summer most of the exterior work should be completed.) UPDATE: Here's a short piece from WTOP about the plans for the bridge.
 

With the daily Building Permit feed continuing to be on the fritz, it's back to finding out about approved permits on Mondays, via the Never-Ending PDF File. Today's news (on pages 182 and 186, for those of you following along at home) is that the building permit has been approved for 909 New Jersey Avenue, JPI's 244-unit residential project on the block where the Nexus Gold Club recently closed; an excavation permit was approved as well. In one of the articles on the Nexus closing, JPI said it was planning to begin demolition on the site in March. In other permit news, a bunch of soil boring permits were approved (page 183) for the Monument Realty/Half Street site.
 

The next Police Service Area (PSA) 105 meeting, which covers Capitol Hill as well as most of Near Southeast, is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 27 at 10 am, and is being held in the 1st floor community meeting room at Capitol Hill Tower--and they're offering a tour of the CHT building after the meeting as added incentive.
More posts: Capitol Hill Tower
 
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