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SC1100
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Thompson Hotel ('20)
West Half ('19)
Novel South Capitol ('19)
Yards/Guild Apts. ('19)
Capper/The Harlow ('19)
New DC Water HQ ('19)
Yards/Bower Condos ('19)
Virginia Ave. Tunnel ('19)
99 M ('18)
Agora ('18)
1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
Insignia on M ('17)
F1rst/Residence Inn ('17)
One Hill South ('17)
Homewood Suites ('16)
ORE 82 ('16)
The Bixby ('16)
Dock 79 ('16)
Community Center ('16)
The Brig ('16)
Park Chelsea ('16)
Yards/Arris ('16)
Hampton Inn ('15)
Southeast Blvd. ('15)
11th St. Bridges ('15)
Parc Riverside ('14)
Twelve12/Yards ('14)
Lumber Shed ('13)
Boilermaker Shops ('13)
Camden South Cap. ('13)
Canal Park ('12)
Capitol Quarter ('12)
225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
Foundry Lofts ('12)
1015 Half Street ('10)
Yards Park ('10)
Velocity Condos ('09)
Teague Park ('09)
909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
100 M ('08)
Onyx ('08)
70/100 I ('08)
Nationals Park ('08)
Seniors Bldg Demo ('07)
400 M ('07)
Douglass Bridge Fix ('07)
US DOT HQ ('07)
20 M ('07)
Capper Seniors 1 ('06)
Capitol Hill Tower ('06)
Courtyard/Marriott ('06)
Marine Barracks ('04)
 
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More on Bus Garage Sale to City
Both the Post and the Examiner have small pieces today on the city's desire to purchase the Southeastern Bus Garage at Half and M from Metro, which I wrote about last Friday. New tidbits: the Post says that "Metro had offered the property to developers through a bid process that began June 8. As of yesterday's 2 p.m. deadline for bids, the transit authority had not received any offers." The Examiner notes that "Metro routinely grants local governments the first chance to purchase surplus properties at market price." The WMATA board is scheduled to vote on this proposal Thursday; here's the proposed action item, which explains why the city is interested: "The Garage is currently being offered for public sale through an Invitation for Bids process. The Garage is located in the new Nationals Ballpark District, and the District of Columbia has an interest in the successful redevelopment of the area surrounding the ballpark and is concerned that WMATA's Invitation for Bids process for the Garage will not yield the high-quality, mixed-use development that is required to achieve its goals for this area. By letter dated June 27, 2007, the District of Columbia, acting by and through the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, requested that WMATA enter into direct negotiations with the District of Columbia for the sale of the Garage."
 

Dispute Over Stadium Fixtures Going to Arbitration
From Saturday's Washington Times: "The Washington Nationals have requested the use of an arbitrator to settle a dispute with the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission over millions of dollars in costs related to the construction of the team's new ballpark. The move comes after several months of negotiations over how much the team should contribute toward the cost of furniture, fixtures and equipment, commonly referred to as 'FF&E.' The team is filing to help reach a settlement on what it views as $9 million worth of disputed costs." As for the question that this brings up: "Sports commission officials, however, said they do not expect the dispute to affect the construction timeline for the ballpark. The commission already has begun ordering furniture and other items for the stadium and has no plans to stop during the arbitration process. The ballpark is scheduled to open in time for Opening Day of next year."
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Quick Photo Update - Onyx and 70 I
Took advantage of a Simpsons-like afternoon sky to grab some quick shots of the construction on the residential projects Onyx on First and 70 I, which both now have their first floors built. You can look at those two pages to see the shots along with their "befores", or just browse all of my photos from today on a single page. It should be noted that I'm somewhat hamstrung with documenting 70 I's construction, thanks to the closure of I Street between Half and New Jersey--I can really only take shots from Half and I looking eastward. But as it comes farther out of the ground, I can go with other farther-away vantage points to get the good befores-and-afters.
More posts: 70/100 I, jpi, Onyx, Square 743N
 

DC to Purchase Metro's Southeastern Bus Garage
Well, here's a bit of a stunner. While prepping myself for Monday's scheduled deadline for developers to submit bids to purchase Metro's Southeastern Bus Garage at Half and M, SE, I peeked in on the agenda posted for WMATA's July 26 board meeting, and there's an action item about the sale: "Purpose: To request Board approval to enter into negotiations with the District of Columbia for the sale of the Southeastern Bus Garage."
Whaaa?
Quoting: "The Garage is currently being offered for public sale through an Invitation for Bids process. The Garage is located in the new Nationals Ballpark District, and the District of Columbia has an interest in the successful redevelopment of the area surrounding the ballpark and is concerned that WMATA's Invitation for Bids process for the Garage will not yield the high-quality, mixed-use development that is required to achieve its goals for this area. By letter dated June 27, 2007, the District of Columbia, acting by and through the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, requested that WMATA enter into direct negotiations with the District of Columbia for the sale of the Garage."
As best as I can tell (and I'm working solely off the agenda document, because it's hard to contact people for details at 11:55 Friday night), WMATA is going to sell the 97,000-sq-ft property to the city for "the appraised fair market value", allowing Metro to use the proceeds to fund the construction of a new garage at DC Village. (The property was assessed in 2007 at $34.5 million.)
But then there's a stipulation in the sales agreement that "if the District sells or otherwise transfers the Garage site for compensation greater than the sales price between WMATA and the District, then WMATA will receive 100% of the excess value." In addition, if "the property is increased in value due to approval of a higher density allowance or other similar action by the District of Columbia in the land use approval process, then WMATA will receive 50% of the 'excess value' so created." (Or are these two statements not supposed to both be in the resolution? They would seem to contradict each other.)
What does this mean? Is this the Deputy Mayor's office showing that it will act quickly and strongly in areas where the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation was considered to have foundered? Is it in some way allowing WMATA to get its hands on the sale proceeds faster? Are Monument Realty's stated desires to control both sides of Half Street north of the ballpark in jeopardy? Will this allow the west side of Half Street to be developed faster than if WMATA's bid process had gone through? There is digging to be done. Anyone with answers is encouraged to pass them along.
 

Plans for Soccer Stadium at Poplar Point Falling Apart
Posting a link to the Post's Saturday A1 story "Talks Fall Apart on Stadium for DC Soccer Team", for those interested in the possibilities of DC United building a new soccer stadium at Poplar Point, right across the Anacostia from Near Southeast. The lede: "Negotiations to build a soccer stadium for D.C. United in Southeast Washington have collapsed, leading District officials to pursue other options for the site and team officials to threaten to move the franchise out of the city, government sources said yesterday."
More posts:
 

Nats Get a Ballpark Tour
From MLB.com (via a hat tip from reader Kris) word that today members of the Nationals got a tour of their future home. (Alas, I didn't get invited, so we'll just have to depend on other media outlets for the scoop.) Tucked between quotes by the players marveling at the size of the new locker room compared to RFK is this fun nugget: "The tour drew plenty of attention, with a full swarm of local media on hand as well as the Discovery Channel. Danny Forster, host of the show "Build it Bigger," was spending time at the ballpark documenting the process for a future episode of the show. [...] The show featuring Nationals Park is tentatively scheduled to air in mid-September." Will update with additional links as they come in.
UPDATE: I should also mention that if you browse through the Camera 2 images of the Stadium Web Cam from today, you'll see the stadium's first escalator getting installed, and also you can see the first floor of the "knife-edge" admin building is going up. And on Camera 1 you can see that the excavating of the infield is underway, and that the last of the structural steel for the outfield restaurant is going in. And you don't even have to wait for the special on Discovery!
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Time Lapse Video of Bridge Lowering
DDOT has posted a time-lapse video of yesterday's lowering of the Frederick Douglass Bridge, and there's a link to it from this page with the press release on the lowering. If you want to study how it was done, my photos from the lowering don't go by quite so quickly (hee hee).
UPDATED: Here's a video clip on the lowering from WJLA.
 

Mayor Signs Bill Transferring AWC
The Washington Business Journal has a quick blurb confirming that today Mayor Fenty did indeed sign the billtoday's bill signing that merges the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the National Capital Revitalization Corporation into the office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. Not much newsy, so I'll just quote from my entry yesterday: "Work has already begun on the merging of these two quasi-governmental agencies into the DMPED offices, but it is not anticipated to be completed until October. (My post on last Friday's hearing about the transition has more information.)"
UPDATE: Here's a Channel 4 piece on the transfer. And the DMPED press release. And audio of a piece on WAMU radio.
 

More Pieces on Opus Buying the Nation Site
Two more pieces about Opus East's purchase last week of the Nation site at 1015 Half Street; the Washington Business Journal today has a pretty straightforward brief, while yesterday's Washington Times has a longer piece that also discusses the Near Southeast commercial real estate market. (But there's one small quibble with the second sentence of this piece: "Although office buildings are nothing new for Opus East, building one on speculation in Southeast is unusual" is kinda sorta forgetting about Opus's 100 M Street project a mere two blocks away.)
Of course, when you read these (and the others), don't forget who first brought you the news about the sale, back on Monday.
 

Bridge Lowering Completed - Yesterday!
When I looked closely at the photos I took of the Douglass Bridge lowering yesterday around 5 pm, I thought that the hydraulic jacks looked like they didn't have much further to go--but everything DDOT had said indicated that the lowering was going to take 24 hours, at about two inches an hour, so I figured my layman's eyes just didn't understand what they were seeing. As it turns out, I was right--a press release just e-mailed out by DDOT (not yet online) says that the bridge lowering was completed about 90 minutes after I was there, having taken about 16 hours. (So they must have started around 2 am, not 8 am as I had thought.)
Watch for a time-lapse video of the lowering on the local newscasts later today, which of course I will link to. In the meantime, here's Dr. Gridlock's blog entry on the lowering.
I wonder if the rest of the work on the bridge and South Capitol Street will be completed in 60 percent of the time originally budgeted?
 

Douglass Bridge Lowering Underway - Updated
Today is the day that the northernmost 200 feet of the Douglass Bridge (north of the Anacostia shoreline) is being lowered by as much as four feet so that the bridge's approach can begin/end at Potomac Ave. I've got some photos of the initial work this morning, but the photos aren't exactly action-packed, thanks to the lowering pace of two inches per hour. You can see the jacks in place and all the hubbub of work going on, as well as the new earth-fill ramp leading up to the bridge (which was a surprise for me, I didn't realize how far along the ramp already is).
I'm going to head back down this afternoon, when the light is better, and take some shots of the progress, so check back later in the day; I'll also be adding links to the media coverage as they pop up.
The lowering is scheduled to be completed late tomorrow morning.
UPDATE: Here's WTOP's piece.
UPDATE II: I went and got some seven-hours-later shots, which you can see side-by-side with the morning shots. It's of course nowhere near as dramatic as the befores-and-afters of the bridge's demolition last week, but you can tell a difference.
 

Mayor Fenty to Sign AWC Transfer Bill
On Friday at the Old Capitol Pumphouse at the foot of First Street and Potomac Avenue, Mayor Fenty is scheduled to sign the bill that transfers control of the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the National Capital Revitalization Corporation to the city's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The ceremony is scheduled to start at 11 am. Work has already begun on the merging of these two quasi-governmental agencies into the DMPED offices, but it is not anticipated to be completed until October. (My post on last Friday's hearing about the transition has more information.)

 

Ballpark and Beyond This Week
My Ballpark and Beyond column in this week's District Extra of the Post covers the NCPC votes on the surface parking lots and The Yards design, the water and sewer special assessment on the blocks north of the stadium, and the $140 million in bonds that will help finance various projects along the Anacostia River, including Diamond Teague Park and its rumored ferry pier. The links above will take you to the news items originally posted here or to the pages I maintain on the various projects; in particular, check out The Yards First-Phase page for many of the renderings that were shown to the NCPC.
 

Public Meeting on MPD Move - A Summary
Tonight was the community meeting about the proposed consolidation of many of the Metropolitan Police Department's functions into the old Star/Post Plant at 225 Virginia Ave. The session was run by council member Tommy Wells, with Office of Property Management director Lars Etzkorn and MPD assistant Chief Brian Jordan on the hot seat in front of a crowd that was decidedly not excited about the proposal in its current form.
And for a good portion of the meeting, residents were unable to get an answer as to whether or not this plan is a done deal, but toward the end Wells and Etzkorn and council member Phil Mendelson (who arrived late in the session) seemed to indicate that perhaps there's still some wriggle room on some of the plans.
To summarize for folks who haven't been following along since news of this plan broke late in 2006, the District has signed a lease for the 440,000-sq-ft building and has formulated a plan to move 1,100 MPD employees in the following units into the building: the superintendent of detectives, the violent crimes branch, narcotics and special investigations, special operations, property and evidence, and the First District station that is currently at 4th and School streets, SW.
The building is going to need a fair amount of interior work, plus the construction of a 460-space garage, so up to $100 million of that cost is being built into the yearly lease. (My previous news items on 225 Virginia can give you additional background.) And, the relocation of the 1D station clears the way for the construction of the city's new Combined Forensics Lab on that site, which is clearly a priority for all branches of D.C. government.
The biggest concerns coming from the assembled audience were the move of the First District station out of Southwest, and the issue of parking, given that the new garage to be built is 188 spaces short of MPD's identified needs. Noise was also brought up as a worry.
Despite assistant chief Jordan's description of the First District station move as being "only 5,500 feet" (in other words, a mile) and his explanations of how the officers would only be at 225 Virginia during roll call and shift change and out in their PSAs the rest of the time, Southwest residents remained clearly opposed to losing their station.
As for the parking, the Powerpoint presentation showed a plan to create 108 spaces at the DPW Trash Transfer lot at Second and K streets, SE, and use 80 street spaces on the four streets that surround 225 Virginia. Etzkorn did make a point of mentioning that the use of the DPW site will be done in such a way that ensures that the site can still be developed, as it is supposed to eventually be home to a mixed-income apartment building as part of the Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopment.
There were discussions of creating "24-7" residential parking restrictions to prevent overflow MPD parking on certain blocks in similar fashion to how parking is handled at RFK for baseball games, but the idea of police cars ever actually getting ticketed for parking illegally was met with extreme skepticism. Assistant chief Jordan did pledge that the MPD would be a "good community partner."
There were even comments about whether it's a good idea to consolidate the city's emergency response infrastructure in a single building, one that's just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, given the possibilities of a terrorist strike. (One woman went so far as to mention how easy it would be for evildoers to take out 225 Virginia by launching a missile from the Southeast Freeway.)
Etzkorn, taking pains to emphasize that this lease deal was created before he joined OPM, admitted that this project has been poorly handled from a community involvement perspective. The lease was approved by the council during the final days of the Williams administration, without any public meetings to discuss the viability of putting such a large traffic-creating target-rich development in such a residential area.
Mendelson said that if there's a lot of opposition to the move of the 1D station, then it needs to be looked at, and Etzkorn echoed that by saying that the Fenty administration needs to make sure that the plans are appropriate and that "this is not a fait accompli." Wells concluded by saying that everyone needs to respect that there were a lot of reasons for picking 225 Virginia and making these plans, but that he has now inserted himself into the discussion and will help to negotiate what's best for the community while weighing what's best for the city.
The participants pledged that there will be another community meeting soon. So, while you're waiting for that, keep checking back here for when I post the meeting slides, and also read Lars Etzkorn's June 7 testimony on the move (and my two summaries of that hearing). If you have strong feelings on the subject one way or the other, contacting Tommy Wells, Phil Mendelson, and Carol Schwartz wouldn't be a bad idea. And of course, as soon as I hear anything more, I will post about it.
UPDATED 7/19 with a link to the meeting's slide presentation.

 

Portion of Douglass Bridge to be Lowered on Thursday
The next big "moment" in the Douglass Bridge's Extreme Makeover is scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday, June 19), and that's the lowering of the elevated northern approach of the bridge by just over four feet. According to today's media advisory from DDOT, this will happen veeeeeery slowly--"coming down by approximately two inches per hour"--and is expected to take 24 hours from start to finish. Starting at 8 am, crews will "cut" the bridge's support columns, and then the bridge deck will be supported and lowered by more than 35 hydraulic jacks, with four jacks at each support pier. If you want to get a feel for exactly what's going to happen, DDOT's video on the Douglass Bridge changes has an animation of the lowering at about the 4:20 mark.
Look for TV coverage of it all tomorrow; and I wouldn't be surprised if a certain blogger posts some visuals of it, too.
 

1015 Half to be Green; 100 M on the Market
GlobeSt.com has a piece (free for seven days) on Opus East's purchase of the Nation site at 1015 Half Street--not really anything new from what I posted on Monday (441,000 sq ft, construction starting in October, $41.5 million price tag) except that the developers will apply for LEED Silver certification on the project (i.e., it'll be a "green" building). But mainly I'm using this new article as a hook to mention that Opus has put its 100 M Street building on the market as part of a three-building Class A office building portfolio (see Grubb and Ellis's listings here, which include this portfolio.) From what I understand, Opus would stay on as developer until the certificate of occupancy on 100 M is obtained. Looks like the deadline for offers is tomorrow, so get your checkbooks out.
 

Reminder: Meeting Wednesday Night on MPD Move
Just a reminder that Wednesday night, July 18, the Metropolitan Police Department is holding a Community Meeting on the Relocation of the Metropolitan Police Department to the old Post Plant site at 225 Virginia Ave. Tommy Wells will be in attendance, as will representatives of MPD, the Office of Property Management, ANCs 6B and 6D, and other officials. It should be a well-attended meeting: there's the residents of Southwest, who are not happy that these proposed relocation plans include the move of the First District police station from Southwest over to Southeast; and the Friends of Garfield Park and other close-by residents, who are concerned about the parking and traffic issues.
The meeting is at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 3rd and A Streets, SE, at 6:30 pm. If you want more background on this proposed move, scroll down through the "News" tab of my 225 Virgina Ave. page.
 

Temporary Surface Parking Lots at The Yards
As I posted a few weeks ago, a request is now making its way through the process that would allow the construction of another batch of temporary surface parking lots, this time at The Yards, totaling an additional 950 spaces. Temporary surface lots are actually already allowed at The Yards under the Southeast Federal Center Zoning Overlay, subject to this mandatory review. The Zoning Commission hearing is on July 26, and the Office of Planning has completed its report supporting the request, saying among other things that these lots would actually improve the appearance of the parcels and surrounding area--if you've looked at the south side of Tingey Street, you know thiis isn't very far off. (The OP report has a lot of good detail on the Yards parking proposal, so be sure to read it.)
My network of moles inform me that at last week's ANC 6D meeting, after a presentation on the plan, no one made a motion to support it, and when one commissioner made a motion to oppose, no one seconded. (Voice of the Hill has a blurb on this meeting as well.) Ouch!
The case will also then be reviewed by the National Capital Planning Commission at its August 2 meeting.
If you want to know more about the state of ballpark-related parking, my Stadium Parking and Transportation page has the gory details, including a map of the possible lots and links to the slew of documents that have been generated over this subject. And the clock is now ticking on when that draft Transportation Operations and Parking Plan is supposed to be released (it was going to hit the streets in June, it was said...).
 

Harriet Tregoning on Kojo Nnamdi Show
The city's Director of the Office of Planning, Harriet Tregoning, spent an hour on Monday talking about city development and planning issues with WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi; you can listen to it here. Topics covered included the H Street corridor, Southwest, industrial uses, retaining local retailers, green development, Poplar Point, and livability and walkability. She mentioned that retail around the stadium is going to be an issue at first, since there won't be much of it ready by Opening Day 2008, and seemed to indicate that vendors ("something other than hot dogs and FBI t-shirts") could be an option. When asked about the status of Canal Park by a Near Southeast resident (wave to the crowd, Sophia) She also reiterated what I've reported here over the past few days: there will be no overflow stadium parking on the Canal Park site, but negotiations have not yet been completed to get the current lease holders (i.e., the school bus lots) off the site, so there is no start date for the park's construction.
 

Update on Douglass Bridge Work
From a DDOT press release entitled "Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge Renovation on Schedule" (now online), a list of what's to come this week now that the demolishing is done: "Forming of new light poles, continuing the bridge deck repairs and the completion of the deck testing, utility work on South Capitol Street, setting of jack towers, [and] the lowering of the bridge of Thursday, July 19." Since it might be three or four whole days before I venture back down there for new pictures, you'll have to settle in the meantime for last week's shots and the Stadium Construction Webcam Camera #2.
 
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