On March 26 29 at 6:30 pm, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission is holding a Public Meeting on the Nationals Ballpark Traffic Operations and Parking Plan, which should be a festive meeting-of-the-minds between the public and representatives of DDOT, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Nationals, and the DCSEC. See the front-page story from the April Southwester for more information. UPDATE, 3/27: It would help if I could *read* - the meeting is this Thursday, March 29, not yesterday.

At this point I hate to even utter the phrase "parking garages," but I would be remiss if I didn't pass along the news that this week building permit applications were filed for 25 N Street and 75 N Street (and another one for both addresses together), which would be the address of the two lots on the north end of the stadium site where the garages are to be built. The applications really don't tell you anything, but it's certainly a sign that the garages are moving forward. In other building permit news, Monument Realty has gotten its shoring/sheeting/excavation permit approved for their big Half Street/Ballpark District project, and they tell me they expect to have the site cleared by early March. (Alas, you can't yet see this approved permit in my DC Gov't Building Permit feeds module, because that feed has apparently been taking some snow days this week.)

A correspondent tipped me off to a bunch of newly posted renderings of the Nationals Ballpark, one of which is a gorgeous fully detailed rendering of the stadium at night, as seen from the southeastern edge of the site (at 1st and Potomac). I've added this rendering and a couple of the new interior views to my stadium page; to see the additional interior views, visit the Nationals New Ballpark page on MLB.com. Note in the new external image that the new garages (not wrapped with development goodness) are depicted for the first time (albeit on the opposite side of the stadium!). And the retail offerings along 1st Street are also shown with a bit more detail.

Now that the parking garage issue has been resolved (at least until Opening Day 2008, when hordes of stadiumgoers gasp in disbelief at what they're confronted with when they arrive and descend on the owner's box with pitchforks and boiling oil), I finally felt ready to tackle a reorganization of my Ballpark District page. Mainly I added a new "tab" specifically for the Monument Realty projects along Half Street, which also includes the expansion of the Navy Yard Metro station; I also added some additional photos of other Ballpark District sites. I hope to get renderings of the Monument residential project at Half and N and the W Aloft hotel mid-block before too much longer, but at least I do have drawings of the office building planned for Half and M (above the Metro station). And I now decree that the parking garages are on the stadium site, not in the Ballpark District, and will remain so until they get torn down and redeveloped, sometime around 2025.

More to come as the news stories come out, but I'll break the news here that the council passed 10-3 the resolution today to override the Zoning Commission's rule preventing the construction of aboveground garages on the stadium site. (In other words, they voted to approve aboveground garages.) Barry, Catania, and Schwartz were the dissenters. There was much discussion about whether because of language in the original agreement that after Sept. 1, 2007, the city will have to ask the Lerners for permission to develop the parking garage site on the north side of the stadium that the city will be doomed to never having development because the Lerners would never allow construction in that spot that would disrupt the ballpark experience. But the councilmembers who voted yes seem to feel that at some point in the future there is still the ability to tear down the aboveground garages and develop the land, which will only continue to escalate in value. One teeny item that creeped out of the debate that may be how they're getting this under the cost cap--Jack Evans mentioned that aboveground garages are now being planned for the 300 south side parking spaces, which Clark Construction says can be done for $1.6 million. If this is true, that they're now dispensing with the idea of a grand southern-side plaza (where hardly anyone will be arriving from anyway) then they should have just put 10-story garages right there and had all the parking on the south side. I imagine this is still not a finished discussion.... More to come. UPDATE: Here's the Post story, with a quote from Adrian Fenty that shows perhaps folks are starting to get the message that these two blocks are not the end-all be-all of Ballpark District development: "The land in question on the stadium site is a small percentage of the area around the stadium that is already being developed." UPDATE II: A little late on my part, but here's the WashTimes piece, with an explanation as to why the south side garages can be done so cheaply: "Sports commission officials said the city was able to save money because the Nationals relaxed their requirement for 300 spaces at the south side of the stadium. The stadium construction team, led by Clark Construction of Bethesda, said it can build the parking more inexpensively now with only 130 space at the south." And here's Tim Lemke's Q&A on the entire garages brouhaha, for those smart souls who haven't been paying attention. UPDATE III: If you're into self torture, this council session is available via on-demand streaming video.

From Tuesday's Post: "The D.C. Council appears poised today to approve a scaled-back parking plan for the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium that calls for building two free-standing garages just north of the ballpark, near South Capitol Street and the Navy Yard in Southeast. [...] The new plan would build garages without reinforcement at a cost of $36 million, which could be paid with existing funds and remain within the cost cap, city officials said. Essentially, the plan is what the Lerner group has pushed for since taking over the team in the summer. [...] Fenty said the Lerner group has promised to work with the city to potentially tear down the garages in future seasons if a solid mixed-use development plan is proposed."

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.