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99 M ('18)
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1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
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909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
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Nationals Park ('08)
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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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36 Blog Posts Since 2003
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In addition to trying to decide on the design of the new baseball stadium, DC officials also are now evaluating the eight private financing schemes that have been submitted. Today's Post ("'Big Boxes' Part of Stadium Pitch") details developer Herbert S. Miller's proposal of "developing the land surrounding the planned ballpark in Southeast with the large-scale retailers [like Wal-Mart or Costco], a variety of smaller stores and restaurants, 450 loft apartments, 780,000 square feet of office space and a 250-room hotel." This would be accomplished by having the city acquire all of the land south of M, north of Potomac Avenue, east of South Capitol Street, and west of First Street and giving it to him. The city's chief financial officer has until March 15 to decide whether any of the private financing proposals are feasible. Miller is the developer behind the new Gallery Place as well as Potomac Mills.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Good piece in Sunday's Post ("DC Seeks 'Signature' Ballpark") on what DC is looking for in the design of the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium. Proposals are due by February 15, and the city plans to choose a chief architect for the project by Feb. 28. If you want to know more specifics, you can plow through the Request for Proposals.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Demolition at Capper/Carrollsburg has moved over to the block bounded by 2nd, 3rd, L, and M streets, the last location of demolishment in this first phase. My guess is that this spot is being cleared to help pave the way for the construction of an office building at 250 M Street, although I have no news on a timetable for that. (250 M will not actually take up that entire block, it should be noted--it will front M Street, with its footprint being pretty much the parking lot that's currently there.) The 4th/5th Street demolition is in the clean-up phase (taking away the piles and smoothing the lots). And within the past few days fence stakes have appeared around the Capper buildings in the 4th/I/3rd/K block. I don't think demolition will begin there anytime soon, but those buildings are probably now cleared of tenants, and so can now be fenced off.

 

Happy 2nd Anniversary to the "Near Southeast" web site! Today's Washington Post had a nice article (registration required) about Andrew Altman and the newly created Anacostia Waterfront Development Corporation, which of course will be a huge driving force in the future of Near Southeast. And, in gastronomic news, "Five Guys Soon" is now scraped into a window on the ground floor of the 2nd Street side of 1100 New Jersey Avenue. Burgers for everyone!

 

The baseball angst of the past week appears to have been resolved, and the council voted today to amend the stadium financing bill in a way deemed to be acceptable by Major League Baseball. As for the winner of the Most Unintentionally Hilarious Statement, that would be Linda Cropp of course, saying that she's not expecting any surprises but "you never know till the last vote is taken." Gee, what experience has she had with expected votes being scuttled at the last minute?

I'll note here that of course private financing is a better solution for DC, but I just wish it hadn't had to be done in such a typical DC fashion. Let's put it this way--Tony Williams would never have gotten MLB to bring the team to DC without pledging public financing, so all the griping about his "rolling over for MLB" is a bit misguided. It's all part of the kabuki theater of government--MLB had him over a barrel, so he had to get them into an agreement, then once he did, there was then leverage for the city to tweak. Not much leverage, granted (this is MLB after all), but enough. It would have been nice if there had been a grand plan for all of this instead of making DC look like a bunch of doofuses, but in this case I'll take the ends even while detesting the means.

Now, let's start talking about exactly how likely it is that there will be a new stadium ready for play in April, 2008! (You know me, I'm an optimist.)

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Mayor Williams has chosen Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd of Seattle, Washington as the winner of the Canal Park Design Competition. They envision "trees, grass, plants, a splash pool, aquatic garden and fountain. Officials say runoff from area buildings will be filtered and recycled and used in the water features." Read the mayor's press release for more information.

More posts: Canal Park
 

On Friday 12/3 Major League Baseball owners approved the move of the Montreal Expos to DC, provided DC meets the terms agreed to by MLB and Mayor Williams back in September. On Tuesday 11/30 the DC city council approved the "first reading" of the stadium financing bill 6-4 (with 3 voting "present", the wusses), with a few amendments. The final vote has been scheduled for Dec. 14. I'm too tired of all of it to go into the specifics--The Post's Nationals page will give you all the details.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

The four design teams picked as finalists for the Canal Park design competition will present their proposals and answer questions beginning at 5:30 pm Wednesday (today) Nov. 17, in the auditorium at Van Ness Elementary School, at 5th and M streets SE. Also, drawings of each proposal will be on display during business hours at the Arthur Capper Community Center, at Fifth and K streets SE, through Friday. A jury will rank the entries and recommend a finalist to Mayor Williams. A winner should be announced within weeks.

More posts: Canal Park
 

News continues to pick up:
· Linda Cropp appears to be backpedaling, and now says she supports the Mayor's baseball stadium financing plan but wants to "explore" private financing options.
· Demolition continues at Capper/Carrollsburg between 4th and 5th Streets. The section south of L is about 70% demolished, and work began today on the section north of L Street. A worker told me that the demolition phase is expected to last about 90 days, and will also include demolishing the buildings on the southwest corner of 3rd and L. (I presume this is to help clear the way for construction of 250 M Street, but I don't know for sure.)
· A Lerner Enterprises new press release included a tidbit that construction of 20 M Street SE will start in Spring, 2005. There didn't seem to be any hint of it in a recent WBJ article on the area, so I'm a bit skeptical, but we'll see. Maybe the pending arrival of the baseball stadium has jump-started their market.
More posts: 20 M, Capper, Nationals Park
 

DC Council chair Linda Cropp has delayed for two weeks the vote on the baseball stadium plan, which was supposed to happen today (and for which Mayor Williams had the necessary seven votes to pass). She now says that she has a new plan for financing at the South Capitol Street site. Whatever. Hope she's enjoying her newfound power-hungry-ness. At least it sounds like her RFK/Reservation 13 alternate plan is dead.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Within the past few days, demolition has begun in a portion of Capper-Carrollsburg, at 4th and L. The plan as I understand it will be to move up the "ribbon" between 4th and 5th Streets and demolish the dwellings in that corridor, which have been boarded up for about a year now.

More posts: Capper
 

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, so here's a bunch of tidbits to try to make up for it:
· Canal Park -- The public presentation of the four finalists for Canal Park is scheduled for Nov. 17. When I have information on location and time, I'll pass it along. The jury review will be on Nov. 18.
· Capper Seniors -- An article about Capper-Carrollsburg in the November Hill Rag (not currently available online) says that construction should begin this month on the seniors building at 5th and Virginia. (I think we've heard this before!) And that preliminary work of the first batch of Carrollsburg Dwellings slated for demolition has begun, by National Wrecking, of Illinois.
 

My my my, they're coming to town. DC got the Expos. Our long metropolitan nightmare is over. Now let's see if Tony can get the stadium approved by the City Council. (Only then will I take the question mark off the graphic at right!)

More posts: Nationals Park
 

This is technically outside my Near Southeast purview (although I may have to expand my boundaries!), but today's Post story about DC United negotiating for a 25,000-seat stadium and practice facility at Poplar Point is a great piece of news, and another achievement for the Anacostia Waterfront Iniative. This would be on the south side of the river, almost straight across from Florida Rock. Just think of the vista someday, with stadiums and parks and mixed-use developments on both sides of the river, connected by a rebuilt "promenade"-style Frederick Douglass Bridge.

More posts: Florida Rock
 

A building permit application was filed in late August for a $20 million project at 1015 Half Street, SE. Although that particular tax parcel is owned by Potomac Investment Properties, the entire rest of the same block (bounded by K, Half, L, and South Capitol) is owned by Lerner Enterprises, and would seem to be the same location as the 1000 South Capitol project listed on Lerner's web site, a 250,000 sq ft office building. One way or the other, does this spell the end of Nation, the music and dance club currently occupying that block? See my South Capitol Street Corridor page for photos.

 

Baseball coming to Near Southeast? "District officials disclosed plans yesterday to build a publicly financed stadium costing more than $400 million on the Anacostia waterfront near South Capitol Street, amid growing signs that Major League Baseball will attempt to move the Montreal Expos to Washington." It doesn't mean that baseball in DC is a done deal, or that the Near Southeast site is a done deal, but it's a very interesting decision, and one that would have a huge impact on Near Southeast if it were to happen. You can check out my new Baseball Stadium page for photos of the current area.

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More posts: Nationals Park
 

DC has named the four firms selected to participate in the Washington Canal Park Design Competition. They are: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd of Seattle, Washington; Hood Design of Oakland, California; Sasaki Associates, Inc of Watertown, Massachusetts; and Atelier Dreiseitl of Uberlingen, Germany. Their proposed design submissions are due by Oct. 25, with a scheduled review by a jury of design professionals and community leaders on Nov. 18. (CPDA News Release)

More posts: Canal Park
 

Welcome to anyone visiting this page from my article in the Sept. 2 DC Extra, "The Morphing of a Forgotten Neighborhood." (If you read it online, it's a shame you didn't get to see any of the good images accompanying the print article--see a PDF of it here.)

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You weren't really expecting any news in August, in Washington, were you?

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Some fun tidbits:
· CVS, Subway, and Chevy Chase Bank reportedly have secured space in 1100 New Jersey Avenue, and local restaurant fave Five Guys is in negotiations to move there as well;
· The demolition of the first "ribbon" of Capper / Carrollsburg buildings--on 5th Street--is slated to begin in August, while the construction of the first Seniors Building is scheduled to begin in September (I'll believe it when I see it!);
· While the Canal Park will take a while to be designed, chosen, and constructed (ETA 2006), there are plans to remove the buses, take down the fences, and smooth out and sod the area. DC just needs to figure out where to park the buses first... (I've heard that before, too ;-) )
· I've added to the site renderings for planned office buildings in the 'Hood, at 76 L Street and 250 M Street (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see them). And one new construction shot each for Capitol Hill Tower and the DOT HQ (which got me a $100 parking ticket in the process; donations accepted!).
 
36 Posts:
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