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Near Southeast DC Past News Items
In the Pipeline
25 M
Yards/Parcel I
Chiller Site Condos
Yards/Parcel A
1333 M St.
More Capper Apts.
Yards/DC Water site
New Marine Barracks
Nat'l Community Church
Factory 202/Yards
SC1100
Completed
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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DOT Payments to Fund Waterfront Parks
On Thursday the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development announced that a $111.5 million bond financing package has been finalized that will use payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) by the developer of the new US Department of Transportation HQ on M Street to "significantly" fund four parks along the Anacostia River. Two of the parks are in Near Southeast: the 5.5-acre waterfront park at The Yards, scheduled to be opened in 2010, and Diamond Teague Park, at the foot of First Street across from the new baseball stadium. (Kingman Island and Marvin Gaye Park are also on the list, and the press release notes that this funding could also be used "to finance parks and infrastructure at Poplar Point, the Southwest Waterfront, the Southwest Waterfront Fish Market, along South Capitol Street and a pedestrian bridge connecting the Parkside neighborhood to the Minnesota Avenue Metrorail Station.") The announcement also mentions how the city never received any sort of tax income from the old DOT HQ in Southwest, since the federal government doesn't pay taxes on land it controls in DC. I wrote more about this PILOT package when the bill passed the city council in July.
More posts: Teague Park, The Yards
 

Garfield Park - Canal Park Connector Project Underway; Design Workshop on Oct. 24
A project is underway to design and create a "Connector Path" between Garfield Park just north of the Southeast Freeway and the to-be-constructed Canal Park in Near Southeast one block south of the freeway, with the goal of improving "the bicycle and pedestrian passage under the Southeast Freeway at 2nd Street, SE; making this linkage into a functional and attractive route between Capitol Hill and Near Southeast." There's a web site now online for information about this project, and on October 23 there will be a design workshop for those interested in participating in the process. It will be at St. Peter's Catholic Church (Social Hall), 128 2nd St., SE, from 6 to 9 pm.
UPDATE, 10/1: The date on this workshop has been changed to October 24. Same time, same place.
 

Another Goodbye to RFK; Nationals Letters Added to New Scoreboard
Yesterday the Associated Press sent out a story (published all over the country) about the Nationals leaving RFK: "Still, not too many tears are being shed at the thought of departing for a brand new ballpark next season." It's a nice farewell to a stadium that was a nice temporary home to the Nationals, but lays out a pretty good case as to why they're not staying there. And speaking of the new ballpark, if you look at the Stadium Web Cam's centerfield view and zoom in on the scoreboard at the left of the image, you'll see the big red neon N - A - T - I - O - N - A - L - S letters that have now been installed across the top.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

MPD Move to 225 Virginia Officially Off
(Sorry for the earlier problems with this entry; I've been snakebitten these past two days, buit I should be back now.) From today's Post: "The District has formally abandoned its plan to move police headquarters to an industrial building in Southeast Washington that it began leasing in July but plans to use the building for other government offices, officials said yesterday. The statements, made at a D.C. Council committee hearing, were the latest twist in the on-again, off-again project to move the headquarters from the main municipal building downtown to a vacant warehouse at 225 Virginia Ave. SE." I haven't had a chance to watch any replays of this council hearing, but I hope to catch one if available and get more detail as to what was said. One item from the article that might need clarification: it says that "the police headquarters move has been discarded because it would cost more than $100,000 to renovate the building" -- that is indeed the case, but a number closer to $100 million was what had been being bandied about for the cost to renovate the building. One more quote: "Carrie Brooks, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said that Etzkorn asked the landlord to stop the design work for the police headquarters but that the building might be used as offices for other government agencies." If you want background on this on-again off-again move, read the Past News tab on my 225 Virginia page.
 

Offline Temporarily
Am marooned unexpectedly without real internet access--back soon, I hope! (Too hard to blog from my PDA.)
More posts:
 

This Week's Ballpark and Beyond Column
My Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra covers a number of items I wrote about here on the blog recently: Metro's lack of decision on relocating the buses at the Southeastern Bus Garage, the WalkingTown DC Fall Edition tour of "Capitol Riverfront," the demolition of the GPO building at the Yards, and the proposed 12-unit condo project at 1006 Seventh Street.
 

Goodbye to RFK
With the end of the Nats' season almost here, and with eyes starting to turn to next year and the new ballpark, the Post's Tom Boswell takes a moment to write a fond farewell to RFK.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Another Nat Visits the New Ballpark
This time its Nationals' manager Manny Acta who's traveled down South Capitol Street for a visit to the new ballpark, says MLB.com. "Acta was most intrigued by the Nationals' locker room, which is 10 times bigger than the one at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. He said the locker room reminded him of the Astros' at Minute Maid Park. But Acta was most surprised when Stromph told him that every player would have Internet access in their lockers." We'll see if we can set those up to have jdland.com as their home page.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Still More New Photos
Yesterday morning, after traipsing down to check on the progress of the GPO building's demolition at The Yards, I took a fair number of pictures along Third and Fourth streets in the Capper/Capitol Quarter areas, since it was a gorgeous day and because it had been a while since I updated those photos in my Photo Archive. Here's the complete batch of yesterday's pictures, all on one page--it's mainly photos of a bunch of empty lots, but you can click on the icon under any image to see earlier photos from the same vantage point. There's also some shots of the GPO building, though they didn't seem to be doing any demo work yesterday.
(If you've come to JDLand fairly recently and aren't familiar with my Photo Archive, go give it a spin. You can choose any intersection in Near Southeast and see all the photos I've posted of that location over the past getting-close-to-five-years. And the icon you see on my project pages will show you the archive photos for the vantage point you're looking at. If you're needing to waste a couple of hours, this is the application for you!)
 

City Paper on Stadium Jobs
In the flurry of content last week, I forgot to post this article in the Washington City Paper about the issue of filing jobs during the construction of the new Nationals ballpark with city workers versus residents of the surrounding states.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

New Photos: Stadium Exterior, Onyx, 100 M, 70/100 I
I've posted a nearly full complement of construction update photos, taken on Sunday. There's new shots of the stadium's exterior from along South Capitol Street and N Street (read my miffed post from a week ago about why I'm not getting shots from First or Potomac these days), and the expanded photo stadium exterior archives along South Capitol and N Street are updated as well. I also shifted around the exterior construction gallery to get the more-likely-to-be-updated photos higher up on the page.
I also took the standard shots of the residential projects at 70/100 I Street and Onyx on First, as well as the 100 M Street office building, and also updated the expanded photo archives for each of those, if you can't get enough before-and-afters. Or, you can see all the new photos on one page.
(PS: I know the site is slow today. The tech support people are "working on it." Apologies....)
 

Ballpark Press Box to be Named After Povich
On Sunday the Nationals announced that the press box at the new ballpark will be named after Shirley Povich, who wrote for the Washington Post from 1923 until 1988. (For you young'uns, he's Maury Povich's father.) This news is mentioned briefly in the Nationals Notebook in today's Post and on MLB.com.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Capitol Riverfront BID Survey
The folks at the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (covering Near Southeast and Buzzards Point) have posted a small online questionnaire about the current state of the area and priorities for service as the BID gets itself up and running, if you feel like spending a few minutes passing along some feedback and opinions...
 

GPO Building at the Yards Being Demolished
Building 136 at the Southeast Federal Center, the low-rise beige building along Tingey Street east of First that was home at one time to a Government Printing Office operation, is meeting its maker this morning. It is within the footprint of The Yards, and eventually an office building will be developed on this spot, but that's most likely a number of years away, and so in the meantime the space is slated to be a surface parking lot. (There's already a surface lot next to it, fronting First Street directly across from the ballpark.) Even though as of this writing there's still a fair amount of the structure left, I'm betting that nothing will prevent this demolition from being completed, so I've added it as #139 on my Demolished Buildings page.
More posts: The Yards
 

First Batting Practice at New Ballpark
Some Nationals players took part in the first "batting practice" at the new ballpark on Saturday afternoon. The Post says: "[A]n hour-long program in which [Ryan] Zimmerman and teammates Ryan Church, Justin Maxwell, Wily Mo Pena and Brian Schneider took a bit of batting practice at the unfinished park put the focus where this franchise wants it -- on the future. [...] A group of construction workers -- many of them on the job site at 5 or 6 a.m. -- joined the players, gathering for autographs. The players marveled at the new scoreboard, where a massive high-definition television will be installed, and thought to next year." MLB.com has a piece focused just on the hitting practice, quoting Zimmerman as saying: "I never hit in a place like this. It's like a video game or something. I haven't been here in a couple of months. It has come a long way. It looks real nice. We are real excited to be here next year." And here's the WashTimes article. Also, Yahoo has some of the AP photos of the batting session.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

CNN Looking at Three Near Southeast Sites
Today's print edition of the Washington Business Journal (online for subscribers only) reports that CNN, wanting 80,000-100,000 sq ft of space to upgrade its studios, is looking at three in-development office buildings in Near Southeast: Opus East's 440,000-sq-ft 1015 Half Street, at the old Nation site, which is scheduled to begin construction in October; Lerner's 320,000-sq-ft 1000 South Capitol right next door, which has no announced start date; and Ruben Companies' 350,000-sq-ft 1100 South Capitol, one block to the south. "Sources familiar with the search say the sites were picked for their views of the Capitol, access to transportation and the opportunity to build a structure designed to fit CNN's needs instead of retrofitting an existing building." It should be noted that WBJ also wrote back in late March that CNN (and other companies) were looking at Near Southeast.
 

Leaving RFK Behind; When Will Play Start on South Capitol?
With the Nationals' final homestand of 2007 approaching, there's going to be a slew of "Farewell to RFK, Hello to New Stadium" stories, and the Post's Barry Svrluga gets the ball rolling with "For Hitters, Not Much to Miss," detailing not only the dimensions of the field that have irked players for the past three seasons, but some of the, shall we say, quirks of RFK: "The Nationals will catch up next spring, trading in RFK -- which was built for $24 million in 1961 -- for a $611 million, as-yet-to-be-named park a mile south of the Capitol in Southeast. Everything there will be different -- the clubhouses (swankier), the field dimensions (smaller), the sight lines (improved), the amenities for fans and players alike (existent), not to mention the parking (not enough). For the players, though, RFK has meant one thing above all others. It favors pitchers, they say, and just kills hitters."
As for when exactly the Nats will play their first game at the new ballpark, Svrluga in his Nationals Notebook says: "The Washington Nationals are pushing the idea of opening their new ballpark next season on a national stage, asking Major League Baseball officials to grant them a prime-time game on a Sunday night to be broadcast on ESPN, according to sources who have been briefed on the club's plans. [...] The Nationals wouldn't open with a full series at home to make sure the new ballpark, located along the Anacostia River in Southeast, is completely ready. Rather, the one-game opener would serve as a dry run, just as an exhibition game against the New York Mets in 2005 served as a test for RFK Stadium. The Nationals then embarked on a nine-game road trip before opening the home schedule 11 days later."
More posts: Nationals Park
 

WMATA Committee Punts Bus Relocation Decision
At today's meeting of Metro's Planning, Real Estate, and Development Committee, a proposal to relocate the buses currently operating out of the Southeastern Bus Garage at Half and M to other garages throughout the region was first not supported, then ultimately forwarded to the full WMATA board without a committee recommendation.
The Maryland and Virginia representatives on the committee balked at having to shoulder some additional operating costs of $1 million a year through 2010 in order to relocate the buses (DC's share would be about $2 million a year), saying basically that baseball is a DC amenity, and so any issue with needing to be out of the garage to "accommodate" baseball is DC's problem.
Board member and DC council member Jim Graham, along with Metro General Manager John Catoe, emphasized that attempting to continue the garage's operations during baseball games, with the street closures and large numbers of pedestrians, would be impossible to do safely; Catoe also commented that the current operation of the garage is not safe "by any stretch of the imagination."
Graham also reminded the committee that the construction of a new garage at DC Village is dependent on the using the proceeds from the sale of the current garage, and even suggested that a decision not to allow the relocation of the buses in essence scuttles the sale of the garage, an interesting comment coming just as the committee was about to go into executive session to discuss the winner of the garage sale Request for Proposals.
It was also mentioned by someone (I didn't recognize the voice) that there is no "no-action no-cost" alternative; if the buses don't get relocated, and if it's decided not to build temporary facilities elsewhere until the DC Village site is ready, there will be an additional $1 million a year in costs for the rental of the employee parking lot at the Pepco site at Buzzards Point, which apparently the DC government has been paying but will become Metro's responsibility starting in 2008. And, if the sale of the site were to go forward without relocating the buses, Metro would have to pay a "leaseback" cost to the new owners, which Graham indicated he would adamantly oppose.
After initially voting not to support the recommendation to relocate the buses, the committee reconsidered that vote and decided to forward the relocation proposal to the full board at its Sept. 27 meeting without a committee recommendation, when "hopefully we'll have more information," according to one board member.
You can listen to the discussion, and look at the proposal. And mark your calendars for the 27th. (That's the same day that the WMATA Finance Committee will be meeting in a special session before the board meeting to further discuss the fare increases that has everyone all roiled, so who knows the board will actually meet that day.)

 

New Half Street Renderings
Within the past few days Monument Realty has added a couple of new renderings to its Half Street web site (which it's now moved to halfstreet.com from halfstreetdc.com). The new featured view is looking south down Half Street from M Street, toward the ballpark, showing the east entrance to the Navy Yard Metro station at left, on the first floor of their 55 M Street office building. This image also gives the first hint of what they might have planned for the west side of the street, if they did indeed win the bidding for the Southeastern Bus Garage site on the southwest corner of Half and M--I don't see any indication of the garage being preserved. Also, under the "Work" icon, there's a new image of 55 M, which appears to indicate that they've dispensed with the large LED screens they had originally planned to use to shield the Metro entrance from the street, and are now planning a more standard glass-enclosed entrance. I've added both of these images to my Monument Half Street project page; I should also note (h/t to reader Tom) that banners advertising the project have now been hung on the fences along Half and M.

 

This Week's Ballpark and Beyond Column
My Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra covers the new historic streetscape photos in DDOT's nascent online archive (the print version of the column displays the 1957 South Capitol Street photo with a current one taken from the same location, as I've done on my South Capitol Street page) and the various upcoming council meetings covering Near Southeast-related issues such as Canal Park and the MPD move/not-move to 225 Virginia Avenue.

 
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