I am trying soooooooooo hard to not get sucked into tracking the goings-on at Poplar Point, but I know that a lot of visitors to this site are very interested in what's going on just across the river from Near Southeast. So once again I'm posting a few items of interest, with the disclaimer that you shouldn't depend on me for up-to-the-minute Poplar Point news, and that maybe some enterprising soul will start an East of the River blog that I can happily point people to. Anyway, yesterday brought the official announcement that Victor MacFarlane, whose MacFarlane Partners company owns a 25% stake in the Southeast Federal Center redevelopment, has partnered with other investors to purchase DC United's operating rights, and to build the team a new stadium at Poplar Point and develop the land around it. The team is hoping to get a new stadium built by the 2009 season (!), but no one's officially announced any proposals for how a stadium will be paid for. In the meantime, the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, which is overseeing the redevelopment of Poplar Point, has announced a January 20 Ward 8 Public Meeting about the plans for the site. And now you're all charged with going out and learning more about it on your own :-).

A nice pick-me-up on this dreary Monday morning--the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation has unveiled a redesigned web site, and it's certainly more pleasing to the eye. There's a page listing all of their projects, including pages on the South Capitol Waterfront & Ballpark District and Washington Canal Park in Near Southeast as well as the Southwest Waterfront, Poplar Point, Hill East, Kingman Island, and others. One new item from the South Capitol page, that the 40,000-sq-ft public plaza we've started hearing about planned for the foot of First Street at the waterfront will include a new ferry pier. Lots of people interested in the ballpark and Near Southeast in general have been wondering whether ferry/water taxi options would be incorporated, and I had always seen general discussions that they would, but this is the first specific description I've seen for a planned location of such a pier. Yay! (But I'm guessing we won't be seeing it by Opening Day 2008.) For more information (what little I have) on the First Street Plaza, see my Florida Rock page (whose developers have pledged $3.7 million toward the plaza's design and implementation costs, for what is expected to be a $15 million project); my Canal Park page has info and photos on that project as well.

From time to time, I mention goings-on close to Near Southeast that might be of interest, but aren't projects I'll be tracking. Here's a roundup from the past week or so, you'll probably want to ask Mr. Google for details, I'm just giving you the basics:

Here's a few recent stories from some rather varied publications that reference Near Southeast in someway:

The planned 1.1-million-sq-ft Florida Rock development at 1st and Potomac Avenues (across the street from the new Nationals ballpark) had another Zoning Commission hearing last night, to address some of the concerns expressed by the ZC at the first hearing in September, chief among them the design of the east end of the east office building (see map to orient yourself), which commissioners felt disrupted the line of sight to the Anacostia River from the stadium's grand staircase and viewing platforms. This section of the building--which will house a signficant portion of the project's retail offerings--has now been redesigned so that one will be able to see the Earth Conservation Corps pumphouse from the center of the staircase. This eastern end of the development also faces the new planned First Street Plaza, a 40,000-sq-ft public park to be placed at the terminus of First Street, to draw people to the riverfront. Florida Rock is proffering $3.7 million toward the design, construction and maintenance of this park that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation will develop (total cost estimated to be $15 million). The record is being held open for two more weeks, so look for a vote on the project at the January 8 meeting; I hope to have updated renderings showing the redesigned east building by that point. As for a timeline, Florida Rock estimates that construction on the first phase--the east office building--would begin in early 2008; there has been no announcement from the AWC as to any sort of timeline on the First Street Plaza (which presumably also depends on the acquiring of the WASA land on that site).

In the second part of today's Dana Hedgpeth column in the Post, various developers of projects near the stadium (Monument Realty, Faison, and Ron Cohen) are quoted about their feelings on the tortuous process that led to the aboveground parking garages at the baseball stadium. Said F. Russell Hines of Monument Realty, who owns much of the land directly across N Street: "It's an unfortunate solution[.] Our development would be better if there was complimentary retail and a mix of uses on the other side of N Street. It's not a disaster . . . but this is a significant setback[.] We spent months and months of great plans of what this area was going to look like with the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., and in the end it feels like it's every man for himself. We're going to do what we can to create an area where people come off the Metro and they walk along the streets, where there's restaurants and stores and a real experience." (I wonder if this could be interpreted as also a bit of a smack against the AWC's still-never-released "Ballpark District Master Plan" process.) One of Monument's principals, Jeffrey T. Neal, is quoted as saying "We have a vision for Half Street SE between M and N streets Southeast that has the potential to be one of the most exciting neighborhoods in the mid-Atlantic, but that vision won't happen if the process looks like the one that produced two parking garages[.] There's a better solution . . . than two parking garages. Let the private sector do it. There are zoning laws already in place." For balance, there's Ron Cohen, developer of Square 699N (bounded by Half, K, L, and 1st): It's not going to be good, bad or indifferent[.] "It would have been nice to have buildings lining the parking but there's so much activity and energy in that corridor that it doesn't make a heck of a difference one way or the other."

Lookee here at what's popped up on the agenda for tomorrow's City Council session, a reading and vote on "Ballpark Parking Completion Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2006" and "Ballpark Parking Completion Emergency Amendment Act of 2006." (No sign of either of them in the online system, though.) I don't know what either of them contain, so we'll just have to wait for news to trickle out. The fun never stops. UPDATE: Speaking of the parking, WTOP is reporting that Herb Miller is suing the city, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission and the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, saying that his agreement with the city and Mayor Williams to build the Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness has not been honored. Says Miller: "D.C. will realize it has lost a remarkable opportunity to renew a neighborhood and provide hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit to the city. It is a major loss that didn't have to happen." (Says JD: Just because this plan fell through doesn't mean there will never be development on those two blocks, not to mention that there's already plenty of other development on the blocks just north of the stadium.) UPDATE II: Here's the Washington Business Journal story on Miller's lawsuit.

GlobeSt.com has a brief on MacFarlane Partners, the San Francisco-based real estate investment firm that has fronted 25% of the capital for the development of the Southeast Federal Center (hey, buddy, that's "The Yards" to you!). The article says that "the company plans to make significant investments in the Baseball district" and that "MacFarlane says he expects to announce three mixed-use projects in the area by the end of the year. These will consist of residential, retail and office totaling some $300 million to $400 million. Right now these projects are in the early planning stage, but MacFarlane says that, depending on the density patterns, he expects the projects will cover between one million sf to two million sf." I've seen MacFarlane mentioned recently as part of the group working on Herb Miller's stadium garages plan, but I don't know whether this statement about the three soon-to-be-announced projects would include the garages, or if it includes any part of the SFC/Yards, or if it's partnering with Forest City and Western Development (Herb's company) on the AWC's drive to develop the WASA site, or if it's three completely new projects. I guess we shall see. (Read the GlobeSt brief quick, because they archive after seven days.)

There are projects immediately adjacent to Near Southeast that I won't be tracking with my usual level of obsessive-compulsiveness (no photos, dedicated pages, etc.), but I will mention big milestones if I hear about them. And so first is the announcement of a pending public meeting by the AWC on October 10 on the Poplar Point Site Development Plan process--this is the 70-acre on the Anacostia on the east side of the South Capitol Street Bridge, just across the river from Florida Rock, where possibly a new DC United stadium may be built. (Note that the transfer of this land from Federal to District control is still pending in Congress.) The other project is 1325 South Capitol Street SW, on the western side of the street between N and O (in other words, directly across from the stadium). GlobeSt.com reports (hat tip to reader RR) that Camden Property Trust is planning a 244-unit 210,000-sq-ft building on the site, with construction to start in Q2 2007. (I know, it's just across the dang street from Near Southeast, and maybe by the time the project starts I'll cave and decide to track anything that actually fronts South Capitol. Because there aren't enough projects for me to track :-).)

In case you don't make it a habit to look at my Neighborhood Events Calendar halfway down the home page (boo!), I'm making mention of a few upcoming meetings: Sept. 20 has the Capitol Hill Restoration Society's Preservation Café, "Barracks Row Below the Freeway"; Sept. 21 has a Washington Canal Park Community Stakeholders Meeting; Sept. 28 has an Anacostia Waterfront Corporation Public Board Meeting. See my calendar for times and places.