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Just a quick note that both the zoning review and special exception applications for the office/residential/grocery project planned at 401 M Street at The Yards and the Public Space Committee's consideration of an application for Five Guys to operate a sidewalk cafe appear to have been approved. (I didn't get to see either meeting, so I know nothing more than that.) See the entry below for additional links and details to find out what the heck I'm talking about. And normal posting here on the blog will resume very soon (I promise), since the JDLand batteries are now just about recharged.
 

A somewhat busy Thursday (April 24) is on the boards:
* We might be getting some news on the state of Monument Realty's lawsuit against WMATA over the sale of the Southeastern Bus Garage to Akridge--the WMATA Board of Directors is meeting at 11 am, and the agenda for their executive session includes "Legal Issues - Monument vs. WMATA." I know nothing beyond that.
* Forest City's plans for the office/residential/retail project at 401 M Street will be getting a Southeast Federal Center Overlay District Review in front of the Zoning Commission at 6:30 pm at Suite 220 South, 441 4th St., NW; you can also catch it via live webcast, if it's working. Read more about this from my ANC 6D wrapup last week and an earlier entry on the project.
* And, if you want to make your voice heard about the public space application by Five Guys for a sidewalk seating area, the Public Space Committee will be bringing it up at its monthly meeting, at 941 North Capitol Street, NE, 7th Floor, starting at 10 am. This is the application that ANC6D refused to support last week because of the lack of a community benefits package for the "loss of public space."
 

If you're looking for more lunchtime food options in Near Southeast (and who isn't?), here's word from the Capitol Riverfront BID that local "eco-vending" company On the Fly, which has been setting up shop before Nationals games on Half Street about 100 feet north of the ballpark entrance, will now be offering lunch from their neon-green electric "smartkarts" at that location daily from 11 am to 3 pm, starting today (April 22). Quoting: "In addition to its spicy turkey chili, named a "Home Run" by the Washington Post, On the Fly will offer Rocklands BBQ sandwiches, soft tacos with your choice of chicken estafado, pork carnitas or veggie filling, Japanese edamame salads, Brazilian chopped salad with beef tenderloin, couscous, vegetarian sides, energy bars and other organic natural snacks and beverages." Here's a coupon for a complimentary side order or snack between now and Friday--and it mentions Julia's Empanadas as another of their offerings (yay!). On the Fly also has carts at Farragut North, Gallery Place, and the Arboretum.
 

The Nats continue to expand their single-game parking offerings, with new options for drive-up cash lot parking now posted on the official web site (and being mentioned during game telecasts). The latest offerings are: a) valet parking (at $50 a pop!) inside the Southeastern Bus Garage at Half and M (which the Nats are now leasing from WMATA), b) additional cash-lot parking in official Nats lots T and W (at Capper) for $20 and lot HH for $15; and c) pre-pay-only individual-game Red Zone parking at a mere $40 a game.
Even broadcaster Don Sutton remarked during a broadcast a few nights ago that perhaps the Nats did *too* good of a job of telling people how tight parking and traffic would be, and that now there's plenty of inventory. (Perhaps the Nats also saw the private cash lots cropping up and saw a little bit of $$ flowing away from their grasp....)
But will this additional traffic flow to parking lots increase congestion, causing angst about the volume of cars descending on the neighborhood? (Then again, if it does, perhaps the pendulum then swings back toward people using Metro or the Nats Express.)
 

The Capital Rowing Club and the Anacostia Community Boathouse Association are offering free lessons in "sweep rowing" on Sunday (April 20) from 1 to 4 pm at the boathouses on the Anacostia River nestled between the 11th Street Bridges on O Street. No reservations are required. Even if you don't want to learn to row, it might be a chance to make a visit to the boathouses if you haven't been there before. (And, don't worry, they won't be demolished by the upcoming rehabs of the bridges, though the boathouse operations will be moving to the north a couple hundred feet during construction.) If you can't make Sunday's session, there will be another one on June 7, as part of National Learn to Row Day.
 

Apr 17, 2008 10:59 PM
So, I failed as a neighborhood blogger and archivist and didn't get down to the ballpark (or anywhere close by) for today's Papal Mass. But I didn't have a ticket and couldn't have gotten within a block of the stadium without one. And I figured it all just might get some coverage in the media. I'm not going to track down every article, but here's a sampling:
Check out the Post photo gallery of the day, along with the main article and a feature by Hank Steuver. The WashTimes Papal Visit blog proclaims "Wow--What a Mass!" NBC 4 has a page devoted to all of its video coverage--make sure to scroll down and see the little piece on the St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church that sits right at South Capitol and M. Channel 9 also has a story and a photo gallery, as part of all of their coverage.
Dr. Gridlock kept track of the roads and rails both before and after the mass, and there seem to have been no major meltdowns. Again.
And, in what baseball fans really want to know, NBC4 has the goods on the work it's taking to transform the ballpark back into a ballpark.
Despite my abject failure with the mass, this was a milestone day for me, because during the ridiculously busy home stretch of the ballpark's completion, I just kept telling myself that I only had to hang on through Opening Night and Pope Day, and then all would return to "normal." And now, after posting nearly 2,000 photos and 270 blog entries in these 108 days of 2008, I seem to have made it. Yay!
So, as a present to myself, posting will be a bit light over the next few days as I do a bit of battery recharging.
 

Apr 17, 2008 7:20 PM
From DDOT, word that testing of the swing span of the Douglass Bridge necessitates some nighttime closures this weekend. "To conduct a full test of the swing span, and ensure the safety of motorist and workers, the bridge must be closed during the testing activity. The first closure is scheduled for Friday evening, April 18th from 10 pm to 5 am. If all results return positive no further closures will be necessary. However, if minor adjustments are found to be necessary, additional testing and closures will be conducted on Saturday from 10 pm to 5 am and repeated again with test-dependent closures scheduled for Sunday from 10 pm to 5 am. Motorist will be detoured to the 11th Street bridges."
 

Apr 17, 2008 2:03 PM
On Friday (April 18) at 3 pm, the city council's Committee on Public Works and the Environment will be having the "initial segment" of the hearing on DDOT's proposed FY09 budget. And, quoting from the hearing announcement: "The initial segment of this hearing will focus on the proposed construction of new 11th Street Bridges. A project currently budgeted at $450 million."
I haven't quite been able to get an answer as to whether this means that some portion of the project will begin next year--a contact at DDOT told me that they will "begin work on the ramps to RFK late this summer/fall" and that "removal of these ramps was recommended in the Middle Anacostia Crossings Transportation Study." That *sounds* like they're demolishing those ramps later this year (which, you can see in the EIS Preferred Alternative are indeed slated to be removed, though not technically as part of the 11th Street Bridges project), but until I see it specifically announced (or mentioned in tomorrow's hearing), I hesitate to say that's actually what's about to happen. If anyone out there has insight..... I won't be able to watch the hearing right away, but will try to get to it within a few days.
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Apr 17, 2008 8:56 AM
So, the faithful are streaming toward the ballpark as we speak. Although the 55 M cam showed the upper decks pretty empty with about 90 minutes to go, Channel 9 (already on the air with its coverage of the mass) gives a better view of the tens of thousands already inside. (48,000 people are expected.) How's everyone faring, either trying to get out of the neighborhood or into it for work? Or is everyone just staying home? And, for those reading this later today who went to the mass, how did your trip go?
In other news, my Ballpark and Beyond column this week is yet another one about stadium parking, taken mainly from my Monday night post about ANC 6D's muted reaction to parking and traffic issues (along with the Zoning Commission's approval of having additional lots built in Southwest if landowners want them). I also tossed in a quick roundup of the private cash lots springing up.
 

Apr 16, 2008 12:31 PM
An interesting graphic in this morning's Post gives the lowdown on Thursday's papal mass at Nationals Park. There's even a diagram showing how the interior of the park will be laid out, which is handy, since we can't see it anymore on the web cam. No seating on the infield, for those of you concerned about any wear-and-tear.
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Apr 16, 2008 9:54 AM
From Bruce Johnson's blog, word that the city council has introduced the "Positive Nature Property Tax Exemption Forgiveness Act," which will provide some temporary relief from the property taxes that have endangered the youth program's existence at 1017 New Jersey Avenue.
I've received a draft version of the bill (even though today is Emancipation Day and government offices are closed--good service!). It says that Lot 18 on Square 740 is exempt from real-property taxation as long as it is leased to Positive Nature. Further, "The Council orders that all unpaid real property taxes, interest, penalties, fees, and other related charges assessed against real property located at Lot 18, Square 740 for tax year 2008 shall be forgiven."
This is still just pending legislation at this point, of course, and is a short-term solution while (Bruce says) Tommy Wells, David Catania, and the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development search for new space for Positive Nature.
UPDATE: And who did I just run into at 15th and K, NW--none other than Bruce Johnson himself, doing Man on the Streets about the pope. I took a minute to introduce myself as "that blogger whose photos of the ballpark you've used on your blog." He laughed, and apologized for not originally crediting the photo (and rightly noted that he did so after what I'm sure was an avalanche of feedback from JDLand readers), and we talked for a moment or two about this Positive Nature news. It's a small town....
 

Apr 16, 2008 5:38 AM
After writing about the revitalization of Capper/Carrollsburg a few weeks ago, the New York Times now looks at Near Southeast/Ballpark District/Capitol Riverfront: "But everyone agrees that the change in the neighborhood in the 22 months since work began on the 41,000-seat stadium has been astounding. In what was an urban wasteland of trash-strewn lots, sex clubs, and taxi and auto repair shops, developers have invested in new offices, condominiums, rental apartments, stores and restaurants. This undertaking is still very much a work in progress, but that progress is palpable in the sights and sounds of jackhammers, scaffolds, bulldozers and other heavy construction equipment. Fenced-off areas and hard-hat crews are everywhere." It's a pretty good overview for folks who don't know what's been happening in the area, but JDLand readers will be familiar with most of the descriptions and players. If you're wandering onto this site after reading the Times article, looking for more information (and pictures!) about the changes, just start clicking on the map at right to see what's been happening in these here parts.
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Apr 15, 2008 1:03 PM
I'm just going to bullet-point all this stuff. Follow links for additional background. (See my entry from last night for news on the ANC's discussion about parking and traffic issues during the first games at the ballpark.)
* The commissioners voted to support Forest City Washington's plans for an office/residential/retail project (including a grocery store) at 401 M Street in The Yards. This support hinged on a Memorandum of Understanding on community benefits being offered by Forest City, including a lottery that could allow a 25 percent preference (or higher) for ANC 6D residents when it comes to the 30ish affordable housing rental units in the 194-unit project. (The final verbage of the MOU was hashed out at the meeting; talk about watching the sausage get made.) An audience member complained that LEED certification for the project should not be considered an amenity, but Forest City replied that the city's green building law does not go into effect until 2012, and these buildings are expected to be completed in 2011. Other components include preferences for ANC 6D certified business enterprises and a promise to report yearly to the ANC about the project. A lack of a community benefits package had tripped up this request for support at the ANC's April meeting. This project now goes to the Zoning Commission for a Southeast Federal Center Overlay Review on April 24.
* A request to support William C. Smith's modifications to its plans for 250 M Street (raising the height of the building to 130 feet) was postponed, as the commissioners expressed their unhappiness at the lack of any community benefits. The developer's representatives said that community benefits were part of the original approval of the project as part of the Capper/Carrollsburg PUD, and that this modification is not resulting in any increase in square footage from that original plan. Commissioners had no suggestions for what benefits they would be seeking, only that they want more. This project may be back in front of the ANC at its May meeting, since the Zoning Commission hearing on the PUD modification isn't until late May.
* A request to support a public space permit request by Five Guys to add an outdoor seating area at its Second Street location was turned down, not only because the commissioners said that Five Guys had not provided information on the request to all the commissioners in a timely manner but because there's no offer of, you guessed it, a community benefits package in return for the "public space" being taken.
* A representative of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs updated the commission on plans to add 40 vendors on the streets surrounding the ballpark, thanks to emergency legislation passed on April 1 by the council. The mayor is expected to sign the act today, at which point DCRA will have 21 days to identify sidewalk locations for the vendors to set up shop. It's not expected that any will be on South Capitol Street or on M Street (thanks to narrow sidewalks), and rules prohibit vendors on residential streets. However, in a few months a larger initiative will get underway, with the Capitol Riverfront BID's involvement, to create a "Development Zone" allowed for in the recent overhaul of city vending regulations, which will give the city and residents greater say in where vendors are placed, what they sell, and the appearance of their carts. And, in response to questions from commissioners and audience members: no cigarettes or alcohol will be sold at these carts, and there don't appear to be any concerns on the city's behalf about terrorism related to these carts or their operators. (I'm just reporting what was asked.)
* The commission voted to support the liquor license application of former O Street clubs Ziegfield's and Secrets to reopen at 1824 Half St., SW, at the site of the old "Lime" nightclub. A voluntary agreement with the clubs' owner was reached to address concerns about traffic, cooperation with police, and community input.
 

Apr 15, 2008 8:20 AM
* The Post, the WashTimes, and the Examiner all do their "preparing Nationals Park for the Pope" pieces. (There must have been a press tour, perhaps as part of this Archbishop Wuerl tour that WJLA reports on.) There's also plenty of detail in the Post story about how to get to the ballpark early, expected crunch on Metro during morning rush hour, etc. etc.
* The Post's Federal Diary looks at government plans to deal with what a e-mailer to me called "Take Your Pontiff to Work Day." Both USDOT and the Navy Yard will be open for business (as will all government agencies), with adjusted arrival times for employees allowed; DOT is apparently using this as a "large-scale test of its telecommuting program."
* A reminder again of the planned street closings this week, including the biggie that South Capitol Street (including the Douglass Bridge) will be closed from 2 am to 2 pm Thursday. And WUSA notes that there are river closings too, with the Anacostia closed from the 11th Street Bridges to the Potomac.
* The Capital News Service (seen here via the Miami Herald) talks about the desperation among the flock to get tickets, and how scalping is not being tolerated.
 

Apr 14, 2008 11:12 PM
On Monday night, without much discussion, the Zoning Commission gave approval to the request to add additional blocks in Buzzards Point to the zoning amendment allowing temporary surface parking lots near the baseball stadium. The commissioners who spoke mentioned the need to give the Nationals the flexibility the team was seeking to be able to build new surface lots as development possibly takes away the lots currently in use. The vote was unanimous, although Commissioner Turnbull stated for the record his concern that lots north of Potomac Avenue, closer to the residential portion of Southwest, could introduce significant traffic. As of now, the Nationals have announced no plans to use any lots at Buzzards Point this season.
At about the same time the Zoning Commission was voting, ANC 6D was discussing how the first few games at the ballpark went, in terms of traffic and parking impacts on Southwest and Near Southeast. And, for a group of people who, shall we say, have not been shy over the past few years about voicing fears as to how the new stadium would impact their neighborhood, the reaction was surprisingly muted. Visitor parking passes did not seem to get to all residences, additional signage needs to be installed, issues with left turns and parking enforcement on G Street, SW will need to be addressed, and there were questions about whether the parking restrictions on M Street could be eased, but overall the commissioners seemed to feel that there had been no major issues. Commissioner Robert Siegel, who represents all of the ANC east of South Capitol, proclaimed himself "very pleased." (Though Commissioner David Sobelsohn did remark that things "will go smoothly as long as the Nationals keep losing.")
The meeting itself was pretty sparsely attended, with few of the residents who have been vocal about potential problems at previous meetings on hand. Only a couple people in the audience spoke up about any issues they'd had or seen, and did so without much emotion. The discussion was over in probably about 15 minutes. If you've ever attended an ANC 6D meeting, you know how astonishing this is.
Tommy Wells will be having a community meeting to look at how the new on-street parking regulations are working, both for residential streets and the retail stretches along Pennsylvania Avenue and Barracks Row, on May 7 at 7 pm, at the Capitol Hill United Methodist Church (Fifth Street and Seward Square, SE).
There's other items to report from tonight's meeting, but I'll write about those in an entry to come.
 

Apr 14, 2008 12:17 PM
The stadium web cam is worth peeking in on this week (in case you've gotten out of the habit) to see the work now underway to get Nationals Park ready for the Pope's mass on Thursday. (Note that the Miller Lite ad on the bottom left of the scoreboard is covered.) The 55 M camera shows a banner now hung on the eastern parking garage with the insignia for the Pope's visit.
And, since people have asked: I'm trying to find out how much longer this web cam will be running. (The centerfield camera was shut down last week.) Will report when I hear something.
UPDATE: "Soon," maybe even this week. 'Twill be the end of an era....
UPDATE II: As noted in the comments, the camera hasn't updated since about an hour after I asked when it would be turned off. Oops.
 

Apr 14, 2008 9:31 AM
* After having its ninth-highest ridership day on Wednesday night (the predicted commuting catastrophe that never happened), Metro announces that Friday's hockey, baseball, and cherry blossoms trifecta resulted in its third busiest day ever, with 828,132 riders on Metrorail, behind only the Reagan state funeral in 2004 and a cherry blossoms/baseball doubleheader in April 2007. We'll see if Pope Day hits the list.
* The WashTimes talks about the potential traffic gridlock this week during the Pope's visit, especially for Thursday's mass at Nationals Park.
* WTOP reports that people trying to sell their tickets to the mass online are getting cease and desist letters from the archdiocese. Not to mention all-expenses-paid trips to purgatory.
* This NewsChannel 8 report from Friday talks about how the ballpark will be transformed into a "spiritual center."
* The Post writes about the Nationals Dream Foundation's Neighborhood Initiative, which I wrote about here. (This link is a day late, thanks to the Post's RSS feeds being, shall we say, untimely.)
* The Nats are out of town this week, returning on April 23 for a long homestand through May 4. This is mainly a cheap excuse to give the first link to a gallery I'm going to update throughout the season of photos I've taken at the ballpark that don't fall into the before/after or press event categories. Not much there now, but at the bottom of the page you can also follow the links to the piles of photos I took at the ballpark in March during the run-up to Opening Night.
 

Apr 13, 2008 2:21 PM
If you like photos of streetscapes taken under overcast skies, this has been the site for you lately. Yeesh. On Saturday, before the rains came, I updated my shots of the western side of New Jersey Ave., showing how projects like 909 New Jersey, 70/100 I, Onyx, and 100 M have changed the view in the past year. At least the sun was out for the brief time on Friday evening when I took new photos of the western side of the ballpark, along South Capitol Street. So, adding these to the photos I took earlier in the week of First and Half streets, the current state of construction in Near Southeast is pretty well documented. And now the sun shall come out, but I'll be waiting a few weeks until the next round of updates (probably early May).
Monday brings some meetings with Near Southeast items of interest. At 6:30 pm the Zoning Commission will have its monthly meeting, and is scheduled to vote on whether to open up additional blocks in Southwest to possible temporary surface parking lots (you can watch via live webcast). At 7 pm at St. Augustine's church at 601 M St., SW, ANC 6D will have its monthly meeting, and will be looking at Forest City's plans for office and residential buildings at 401 M Street/400 Tingey at The Yards, and the request by the developers of the proposed 250 M Street office building to increase its height to 130 feet. The project at The Yards has its hearing at the Zoning Commission on April 24, and 250 M's is scheduled for May 14.
And, for this week's visit from the Pope, the Post has a huge graphic of road closures and other information to help get through the festivities. Note that, in addition to the closure of South Capitol Street from 2 am to 2 pm Thursday, it shows that Van, Half, First, and Potomac in SE will be closed at some point, as will O, P, Q, and Potomac SW from Half Street to South Capitol. "Expect other road closures around the ballpark from 9 pm Wednesday until 2 pm Thursday," it says.
 

Apr 12, 2008 8:55 PM
Saturday morning, in between raindrops at the ballpark, the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation unveiled its new Neighborhood Initiative, which aims to support small non-profits near Nationals Park with grants, donations, and resources from both the foundation and the team.
The first two organizations selected for the initiative are the Hopkins Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, located in the Hopkins public housing project at 12th and K, SE, and Near Southeast's own Earth Conservation Corps, which since 1989 has worked with hundreds of unemployed 17- to 25-year-olds to give them career skills and training while working to restore the Anacostia River. Anyone who's looked out at the river from the ballpark's grand staircase or its Potomac Avenue viewing platform has seen the red brick pumphouse that is one of the ECC's two locations (the other is just down the river at Buzzards Point), and which will anchor the soon-to-come Diamond Teague Park, named for an ECC volunteer who was murdered in 2003.
The Dream Foundation will be giving the ECC $40,000 a year for the next three years; the Hopkins club is receiving a $50,000 gift to hire a "teen director." Foundation chair Marla Lerner Tanenbaum said that the Nationals are committed to "being good neighbors," and that "the health of the Anacostia River is a concern of all District residents."
Nats players Joel Hanrahan and Elijah Dukes helped unveil the new "Wall of Dreams," where fans can contribute to the Foundation's works by purchasing a baseball that displays their name and a short inscription, with various "packages" ranging from $250 to $5,000. (The display is just across from the kid's Strike Zone in the Center Field Plaza.) I took some photos at the event; you can also read the press release, along with a piece on MLB.com.
 

Apr 12, 2008 10:04 AM
The spring 2008 edition of WalkingTown DC includes a tour of "Capitol Riverfront: the New Neighborhood Around the Ballpark," on Saturday, April 26, from 10:30 am to noon. The description: "Alongside the Nationals ballpark, between the Anacostia River and the U.S. Capitol Building, a new cityscape is emerging - the Capitol Riverfront. Visit industrial buildings where the Navy once produced weapons ammunition and landmarks such as the blue castle trolley barn and beaux-arts WASA building. Learn how new development projects are transforming the Capitol Riverfront into a business center, urban neighborhood, and entertainment district." It's being led by the executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District as well as a representative of Forest City Washington (developers of The Yards). Meet outside the New Jersey Avenue exit of the Navy Yard Metro station. (As for this whole "Capitol Riverfront" versus "Near Southeast" thing--technically, Near Southeast is a subset of it, since the Capitol Riverfront BID also includes Buzzards Point. And I'm just remaining kinda old school about it all, too.)
 
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