From today's print edition of the Washington Business Journal: "CNN and a couple of law firms are sampling the wares in Southeast DC by taking tours of new office buildings cropping up around the new baseball stadium. No leases have been signed yet, but the buzz of these high-profile tenants looking at Southeast as an option is quite a victory for a neighborhood formerly known as an industrial zone crawling with seediness and crime. [...] Also, rents in Southeast are expected to be around $40 per square foot for full service, $20 to $30 cheaper than new or renovated buildings in the Central Business District." Of course, right now, "tours of new office buildings" means 20 M Street, the only new office building currently completed and with plenty of space to lease. But by 2009 there will also be 100 M, 55 M, and probably 250 M and 1111 New Jersey. And maybe a couple more, depending on what happens within the next few months at Square 699N, Square 697 (Nation), and the Willco site at 83 M. (The article fudges a bit by mentioning 1.8 million square feet of office space was under construction in Near Southeast back in December, but, well, 1.35 million of that was the DOT HQ.) UPDATE: Added the link to the story, since WBJ was nice enough to bring it out from behind the pay wall.

There hasn't been any announced movement on either office building planned for Square 697 (the block bounded by South Capitol, K, L, and Half), but I decided it was time to build (or, more accurately, I got guilted into building) a new page detailing 1015 Half Street and 1000 South Capitol. 1015 Half is the 440,000-sq-ft building planned for the site of the old "Nation" nightclub, and since they do at least have a "Coming Soon" banner hung on the north facade and have applied for raze permits, they get the additional honor of being added to the main projects map on my home page (where space is so very limited). 1000 South Capitol is Lerner Enterprises' proposed 300,000-sq-ft office building, but other than a rendering and some contact info on the Lerner web site, there's precious little additional information about this project. Of course, these new pages have photos on them as well.

Today the DCRA Building Plan Review Status database shows a new building permit application for 1015 Half Street, the site of the old Nation nightclub, where Potomac Investment Properties is planning to building a 440,000-sq-ft office building. This is just the application, it hasn't been approved yet, and to illustrate that permit apps don't always morph immediately into new construction, I point out that a building permit application for 1015 Half was originally filed on August 24, 2004; here's a Washington Business Journal story describing the project. That being said, today's new application is most likely a resubmittal of the original one with whatever structural corrections needed to be addressed from the first application, and clearly they're moving forward with the project; you may remember that I posted last week that a raze permit is also currently in the works for 1015 Half.

With no debate, the four Near Southeast alley closing bills that have been snaking their way through the DC legislative process in 2006 were passed at today's city council session, with both emergency and permanent bills being passed (emergency bills allow the statutes to take effect immediately, allowing the closings to be considered law as the permanent bills await mayoral and congressional approval). To recap, this batch included the closing of alleys on the west side of Square 701 between M, N, Cushing, and Half (at Monument Realty's 55 M Street site); the closing of alleys and the creation of streets named 2nd Place, 3rd Place, and an official designation of a portion of L Street, all part of the Capitol Quarter footprint; the closing of alleys and the eventual reopening of H and I streets between 2nd and New Jersey to make way for W.C. Smith's 1-million-sq-ft mixed-use project at 800 New Jersey; and finally the closing of alleys on the east side of Square 700 (between Half, Van, M, and N), where Monument will eventually add to their Half Street domination. That makes seven Near Southeast alley closings and street changes put on the books in 2006, when you include the stadium street closings, the Willco land on the east side of Square 701 (M, N, Cushing, and 1st) and the Square 743N west-side alley closings that allowed the start of construction on the 100 M Street office building and the Onyx on First residential tower. There's one more potential alley closing wandering around out there somewhere, and that's for Lerner's 1000 South Capitol Street office building; representatives came before ANC 6D way back in April, but (believe it or not!) a squabble broke out about an acceptable community benefits package in return for the ANC's report, and nothing's been heard on this since.