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The WMATA board of directors had on its agenda this morning a scheduled vote on the sale of the Southeastern Bus Garage property at Half and M Street to the District of Columbia (more on this proposed sale here). However, when it came time for the items from the Planning, Development, and Real Estate committee, it was announced that one of the items had been removed from the agenda--which turned out to be the Southeastern Bus Garage sale. The first 10 minutes of the board meeting were not included in the live and archived audio streams, so I don't know whether anything was explained during the "approval of the agenda" portion. I have a query into WMATA. UPDATE: WMATA posted a complete version of the audio file, but alas the sound isn't very good--with two sets of ears listening, it *sounds* as if the motion was made to remove the bus garage sale from the agenda and was then approved without any explanation or discussion.

 

The long-awaited draft version of the stadium Transportation Operations and Parking Plan is becoming available online, in either the full version (58 MB!) an executive summary, or individual chapters and appendices. According to a press release just out from DDOT and the DCSEC (not yet online), there will be an open house about the TOPP on Thursday, Aug. 2 from 6-8 pm at 20 M Street SE with information stations "manned by DDOT, Sports Commission and traffic consultants to allow residents to learn about Traffic Operations and Parking; Transit, Pedestrian Access and Bikes; and Residential Parking Permits, Curbside Management (including shuttle and charter buses)."
I haven't read it yet, so check back for any tidbits I find. But I didn't want to delay getting the link out....
UPDATE: Links are now working.
UPDATES, as I read: Immediate headline jumping out at me: plans for parking spaces and lots aren't completed. Not going to go over well. On the other hand, they are recommending that the restricted residential-parking-only areas (similar to what's been used around RFK) cover all of Near Southeast, Southwest (except possibly a few blocks in Buzzards Point), and Capitol Hill from South Capitol Street to 7th Street SE and from C Street SE to the freeway. (Map on page 20 of the main report).
As has been mentioned for months, they are trying to set up satellite parking at RFK, add a new Circulator line from Union Station, and perhaps get water taxi service running to the foot of First Street. But there's no updated status in the TOPP on any of these ideas (except for RFK parking, for which they are "securing agreements" and having shuttle companies test various possible routes). They're also now looking for between 5,000 and 7,000 total parking spaces. Parking for charter buses is still being worked on as well.
Note: This is a huge document. I'll try to hit highlights, but if there's something of particular concern to you, I suggest putting on your snorkel and flippers and diving in to get your answers, especially in the main report. If you want further background, there's my Stadium Transportation and Parking page, with presentations and flyers from the public meetings that were held as this was being drafted.

 

Back in mid-June there was a Saturday morning public roundtable by the city council's Committee on Economic Redevelopment on current development projects in Southwest and Near Southeast. If you didn't get to go, you can watch it tomorrow (Thursday June 26) at 6:40 pm on DC Cable 13, or via live streaming video. Of course, that's at the same time as the Zoning Commission hearing on Forest City's request to add temporary surface parking lots to the The Yards (also available via streaming video) so you'll have to make a choice.
And if you want to give over your entire day to monitoring developments (welcome to my world!), at 10 am Thursday is the WMATA board meeting where they will decide whether to sell the Southeastern Bus Garage to the city; this will also be available via live and archived streaming audio.
 

On Tuesday DDOT issued a press release with the latest roundup of news from the South Capitol Street/Frederick Douglass Bridge Extreme Makeover. The project is still on time, and is still basking in the glow of last week's lowering of the remaining northern 200 feet of the span. They also have started working on the new "globe" street lights and the utility work along South Capitol Street. Up next? Quoting from the press release (so excuse the jargon): "Continue concrete deck repairs, utility work on South Capitol Street (D/B), form sleeper slab, continue setting and work of MSE wall panels, remove support/jacking towers from two column lines." Also, in addition to the time-lapse video of the lowering, they've posted some photos of the bridge work's progress. What a cool idea! (Hey, we kid because we love.)
 

Some people have written me saying that the work to upgrade the infrastructure around Capitol Quarter has begun--but while it's close, I've confirmed that it hasn't actually started yet, although it shouldn't be too long now. This is work on the water and sewer lines--"vertical" construction (i.e., buildng the townhouses) is still scheduled to start in January 2008.
More posts: Capper, Capitol Quarter
 

News in Near Southeast has slowed a bit, so I'll toss another Poplar Point item your way (with the understanding that this in no way binds me to future coverage!). In the wake of the news that negotiations have fallen through with DC United over a new soccer stadium on the banks of Anacostia across from the Nationals ballpark and the Navy Yard, the city announced on Monday that is seeking competitive bids to redevelop the 110-acre site. Quotes of interest: "District officials are working closely with the National Parks Service to consummate the transfer, which is expected to close this fall. Under the terms of the agreement, the District must reserve at least 70 acres of the property for a waterfront park. The District will also engage in an extensive wetlands restoration, including Stickfoot Creek. [...] Initial planning studies indicate Poplar Point could accommodate more than 3.5 million square feet of development during the next 15 years. Desired uses for the site include a mix of housing, retail, commercial and cultural space. A soccer stadium has been proposed for the site, though the solicitation will not require developers to include a stadium in their proposals. At least 30 percent of all the housing built on Poplar Point will be affordable for moderate and low-income families, in accordance with a District-wide affordable housing policy announced by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty last week. The District will issue a solicitation to developers by the end of August. District officials expect to select a development partner before the end of the year." The Examiner has a piece on this new plan. UPDATE: Here's the WashTimes story.

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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."
 

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
 

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
 

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.
 

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:
 

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
 

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.
 

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.
 

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.
 

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?
 

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.
 

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.)

 

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.
 

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.

 
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