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Near Southeast DC Past News Items
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25 M
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1333 M St.
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New Marine Barracks
Nat'l Community Church
Factory 202/Yards
SC1100
Completed
Thompson Hotel ('20)
West Half ('19)
Novel South Capitol ('19)
Yards/Guild Apts. ('19)
Capper/The Harlow ('19)
New DC Water HQ ('19)
Yards/Bower Condos ('19)
Virginia Ave. Tunnel ('19)
99 M ('18)
Agora ('18)
1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
Insignia on M ('17)
F1rst/Residence Inn ('17)
One Hill South ('17)
Homewood Suites ('16)
ORE 82 ('16)
The Bixby ('16)
Dock 79 ('16)
Community Center ('16)
The Brig ('16)
Park Chelsea ('16)
Yards/Arris ('16)
Hampton Inn ('15)
Southeast Blvd. ('15)
11th St. Bridges ('15)
Parc Riverside ('14)
Twelve12/Yards ('14)
Lumber Shed ('13)
Boilermaker Shops ('13)
Camden South Cap. ('13)
Canal Park ('12)
Capitol Quarter ('12)
225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
Foundry Lofts ('12)
1015 Half Street ('10)
Yards Park ('10)
Velocity Condos ('09)
Teague Park ('09)
909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
100 M ('08)
Onyx ('08)
70/100 I ('08)
Nationals Park ('08)
Seniors Bldg Demo ('07)
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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While the worst of the Douglass Bridge Extreme Makeover pain is now over, there's still some work to be done, and this weekend the inbound lanes of the Douglass Bridge will be closed starting Friday, Sept. 29 at 9 pm, until as late as Monday, Oct. 1 at 4 am. Here's the DDOT press release with details. Quote: "The second phase of construction includes additional work on the swing span area of the bridge and streetscape improvements along South Capitol Street. Upgrades include new environmentally sensitive lighting, pedestrian access improvements such as handicap ramps, pedestrian traffic signals and new sidewalks. Resurfacing work will also take place this weekend on the inbound lanes on South Capitol Street up to N Street."
 

MLB.com has a long article today talking about the new Nationals ballpark, reiterating that it is on time, and on budget with about 75 percent of the project completed, and will be ready for Opening Day 2008. For those who don't follow the day-to-day news items about the stadium and are just looking for a nice survey of what's going on with the stadium, how it got to where it is, what still needs to be done to get ready to open, and issues of parking, premium tickets, stadium upgrades, etc. this article is a good overview. (P.S.: Turf expected to be put down in late October.)
UPDATE: As I catch up from my weekend away, I'm only now seeing this article from Sunday's Washington Times, detailing the somewhat bumpy ride of the Lerners as owners of the Nationals, with a long section detailing the tensions with the city over various issues surrounding getting the new ballpark completed.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

The agenda for the Sept. 27 WMATA board meeting is now online, and attached documents reveal that the John Akridge Development Company has been picked (pending board approval) to purchase the Southeastern Bus Garage site at Half and M, having bid $69.25 million for the 97,000-sq-ft site. Akridge's bid was determined to be "the most advantageous to the Authority" in terms of not only the purchase price but also the terms of a "leaseback" rental, which would be required until the buses currently at the garage can be relocated to other sites and which would be funded by the proceeds from the sale above the $60 million needed to fund the construction of a new garage at DC Village. Settlement on the sale would not happen until the DC Village site has been acquired from the District of Columbia and the WMATA board officially approves the Southeastern Bus Garage replacement project.
If this sale goes through, Akridge would control most of the western side of Half Street between M and N, which is the route that stadium-goers would walk to get to the ballpark from the Navy Yard Metro station. Monument Realty owns the rest of the Half Street frontage, and all of the rest of that city block (known as Square 700), except for the Public Space Storage building on South Capitol Street, and had had its eye on the WMATA site for a long time. It will be interesting to see how the development of Square 700 (smack in the center of the Ballpark District) proceeds.
 

This morning the DC Council Committee on Economic Development is having a public oversight hearing on "Projects Managed by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development" (it's being broadcast live on DC Cable 13 and live webcast, if you're interested). The hearing is still ongoing, and is addressing many projects around the city, but there were two Near Southeast-related items in Deputy Mayor Neil Albert's opening statement that I thought were worth passing along now.
First, it's been decided to not continue to use the old Anacostia Waterfront Corporation space at 1100 New Jersey Avenue after all, and so the expanded Deputy Mayor's office will be split between the Wilson Building and the old National Capital Revitalization Corporation office space at 2020 M Street, NW, and the office moves should happen this week.
Second, Deputy Mayor Albert mentioned Canal Park, saying that "coordination of the site survey, and various site management plans including erosion and stormwater management are scheduled to begin in the next month." He also said that his office is in discussions with the Office of Property Management to relocate the school buses currently occupying two of the park's three blocks to other sites in the city, and that he "expects to have a solution soon." Canal Park is one of the items specifically on the agenda for an Oct. 1 oversight hearing, so hopefully there will be more concrete news then.
If there's additional news from today's hearing, I'll update this entry.
UPDATE: Nothing earthshattering from the rest of the hearing (which, admittedly, I've been listening to with one ear, since the vast majority of it has been on topics outside of Near Southeast). In answering council member Wells's concerns about who will be in charge of the upkeep of the new parks being planned, Deputy Mayor Albert mentioned possible public-private partnerships with the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District for Canal Park and the Earth Conservation Corps for Diamond Teague Park, though he stressed that neither of these have been officially decided on. Wells also asked about whether there's thoughts of creating a Water Authority to help streamline decisions that will have to be made that effect the rivers (such as water taxis, ferry piers, possible new boathouses, etc.); Deputy Mayor Albert said that they've hired a consultant to help them decide how to handle these issues. And, one last tidbit--Albert mentioned that there will be a groundbreaking at The Yards in mid-October.
(If you're interested in Poplar Point or the Southwest Waterfront or the West End library deal, you might want watch for a replay of the hearing broadcast, because those subjects were much discussed. Marion Barry made clear he was not pleased with how the city has handled Poplar Point, and said that he and the Ward 8 community "will oppose any Poplar Point proposal that doesn't include a stadium.")
UPDATE II: Here's a Washington Business Journal blurb on today's hearing, focusing on the savings to the city from the consolidation of the AWC and NCRC functions in the Deputy Mayor's office.
 

I was out of town for the past four days (hence getting caught unexpectedly without internet access on Thursday), so I'm digging around today to make sure that I didn't miss too much. One item I meant to post but forgot about in the whirlwind of travel: a week ago, when I was checking on the state of the GPO building demolition, I found that some digging is underway on the open lot south of Tingey east of the WASA building, which is probably the beginning of the infrastructure work at The Yards. While taking photos of the digging, I noticed a man making multiple trips to put items in his car at the Federal Protective Services trailer on the lot, and thought that maybe the trailer was being vacated. (I would have taken photos of that, but wasn't in the mood to be wrestled to the ground and shipped to Guantanamo.) Sure enough, when I wandered past on Thursday morning on the way out of town, I found that the trailer was gone, leaving only a small Staircase to Nowhere. It's now #140 on my Demolished Buildings page, though I am ashamed to note that #139, the GPO building, is no further along in its demolition than it was a week ago when I decided to prematurely add it to the list.
UPDATE: Easing my guilty conscience, I see that more demolition was underway this afternoon at the GPO building. But there's still a lot of it left.
 

On Thursday the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development announced that a $111.5 million bond financing package has been finalized that will use payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) by the developer of the new US Department of Transportation HQ on M Street to "significantly" fund four parks along the Anacostia River. Two of the parks are in Near Southeast: the 5.5-acre waterfront park at The Yards, scheduled to be opened in 2010, and Diamond Teague Park, at the foot of First Street across from the new baseball stadium. (Kingman Island and Marvin Gaye Park are also on the list, and the press release notes that this funding could also be used "to finance parks and infrastructure at Poplar Point, the Southwest Waterfront, the Southwest Waterfront Fish Market, along South Capitol Street and a pedestrian bridge connecting the Parkside neighborhood to the Minnesota Avenue Metrorail Station.") The announcement also mentions how the city never received any sort of tax income from the old DOT HQ in Southwest, since the federal government doesn't pay taxes on land it controls in DC. I wrote more about this PILOT package when the bill passed the city council in July.
More posts: Teague Park, The Yards
 

A project is underway to design and create a "Connector Path" between Garfield Park just north of the Southeast Freeway and the to-be-constructed Canal Park in Near Southeast one block south of the freeway, with the goal of improving "the bicycle and pedestrian passage under the Southeast Freeway at 2nd Street, SE; making this linkage into a functional and attractive route between Capitol Hill and Near Southeast." There's a web site now online for information about this project, and on October 23 there will be a design workshop for those interested in participating in the process. It will be at St. Peter's Catholic Church (Social Hall), 128 2nd St., SE, from 6 to 9 pm.
UPDATE, 10/1: The date on this workshop has been changed to October 24. Same time, same place.
 

Yesterday the Associated Press sent out a story (published all over the country) about the Nationals leaving RFK: "Still, not too many tears are being shed at the thought of departing for a brand new ballpark next season." It's a nice farewell to a stadium that was a nice temporary home to the Nationals, but lays out a pretty good case as to why they're not staying there. And speaking of the new ballpark, if you look at the Stadium Web Cam's centerfield view and zoom in on the scoreboard at the left of the image, you'll see the big red neon N - A - T - I - O - N - A - L - S letters that have now been installed across the top.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

(Sorry for the earlier problems with this entry; I've been snakebitten these past two days, buit I should be back now.) From today's Post: "The District has formally abandoned its plan to move police headquarters to an industrial building in Southeast Washington that it began leasing in July but plans to use the building for other government offices, officials said yesterday. The statements, made at a D.C. Council committee hearing, were the latest twist in the on-again, off-again project to move the headquarters from the main municipal building downtown to a vacant warehouse at 225 Virginia Ave. SE." I haven't had a chance to watch any replays of this council hearing, but I hope to catch one if available and get more detail as to what was said. One item from the article that might need clarification: it says that "the police headquarters move has been discarded because it would cost more than $100,000 to renovate the building" -- that is indeed the case, but a number closer to $100 million was what had been being bandied about for the cost to renovate the building. One more quote: "Carrie Brooks, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said that Etzkorn asked the landlord to stop the design work for the police headquarters but that the building might be used as offices for other government agencies." If you want background on this on-again off-again move, read the Past News tab on my 225 Virginia page.
 

Am marooned unexpectedly without real internet access--back soon, I hope! (Too hard to blog from my PDA.)
More posts:
 

My Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra covers a number of items I wrote about here on the blog recently: Metro's lack of decision on relocating the buses at the Southeastern Bus Garage, the WalkingTown DC Fall Edition tour of "Capitol Riverfront," the demolition of the GPO building at the Yards, and the proposed 12-unit condo project at 1006 Seventh Street.
 

With the end of the Nats' season almost here, and with eyes starting to turn to next year and the new ballpark, the Post's Tom Boswell takes a moment to write a fond farewell to RFK.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

This time its Nationals' manager Manny Acta who's traveled down South Capitol Street for a visit to the new ballpark, says MLB.com. "Acta was most intrigued by the Nationals' locker room, which is 10 times bigger than the one at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. He said the locker room reminded him of the Astros' at Minute Maid Park. But Acta was most surprised when Stromph told him that every player would have Internet access in their lockers." We'll see if we can set those up to have jdland.com as their home page.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Yesterday morning, after traipsing down to check on the progress of the GPO building's demolition at The Yards, I took a fair number of pictures along Third and Fourth streets in the Capper/Capitol Quarter areas, since it was a gorgeous day and because it had been a while since I updated those photos in my Photo Archive. Here's the complete batch of yesterday's pictures, all on one page--it's mainly photos of a bunch of empty lots, but you can click on the icon under any image to see earlier photos from the same vantage point. There's also some shots of the GPO building, though they didn't seem to be doing any demo work yesterday.
(If you've come to JDLand fairly recently and aren't familiar with my Photo Archive, go give it a spin. You can choose any intersection in Near Southeast and see all the photos I've posted of that location over the past getting-close-to-five-years. And the icon you see on my project pages will show you the archive photos for the vantage point you're looking at. If you're needing to waste a couple of hours, this is the application for you!)
 

In the flurry of content last week, I forgot to post this article in the Washington City Paper about the issue of filing jobs during the construction of the new Nationals ballpark with city workers versus residents of the surrounding states.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

I've posted a nearly full complement of construction update photos, taken on Sunday. There's new shots of the stadium's exterior from along South Capitol Street and N Street (read my miffed post from a week ago about why I'm not getting shots from First or Potomac these days), and the expanded photo stadium exterior archives along South Capitol and N Street are updated as well. I also shifted around the exterior construction gallery to get the more-likely-to-be-updated photos higher up on the page.
I also took the standard shots of the residential projects at 70/100 I Street and Onyx on First, as well as the 100 M Street office building, and also updated the expanded photo archives for each of those, if you can't get enough before-and-afters. Or, you can see all the new photos on one page.
(PS: I know the site is slow today. The tech support people are "working on it." Apologies....)
 

On Sunday the Nationals announced that the press box at the new ballpark will be named after Shirley Povich, who wrote for the Washington Post from 1923 until 1988. (For you young'uns, he's Maury Povich's father.) This news is mentioned briefly in the Nationals Notebook in today's Post and on MLB.com.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

The folks at the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (covering Near Southeast and Buzzards Point) have posted a small online questionnaire about the current state of the area and priorities for service as the BID gets itself up and running, if you feel like spending a few minutes passing along some feedback and opinions...
 

Building 136 at the Southeast Federal Center, the low-rise beige building along Tingey Street east of First that was home at one time to a Government Printing Office operation, is meeting its maker this morning. It is within the footprint of The Yards, and eventually an office building will be developed on this spot, but that's most likely a number of years away, and so in the meantime the space is slated to be a surface parking lot. (There's already a surface lot next to it, fronting First Street directly across from the ballpark.) Even though as of this writing there's still a fair amount of the structure left, I'm betting that nothing will prevent this demolition from being completed, so I've added it as #139 on my Demolished Buildings page.
More posts: The Yards
 

Some Nationals players took part in the first "batting practice" at the new ballpark on Saturday afternoon. The Post says: "[A]n hour-long program in which [Ryan] Zimmerman and teammates Ryan Church, Justin Maxwell, Wily Mo Pena and Brian Schneider took a bit of batting practice at the unfinished park put the focus where this franchise wants it -- on the future. [...] A group of construction workers -- many of them on the job site at 5 or 6 a.m. -- joined the players, gathering for autographs. The players marveled at the new scoreboard, where a massive high-definition television will be installed, and thought to next year." MLB.com has a piece focused just on the hitting practice, quoting Zimmerman as saying: "I never hit in a place like this. It's like a video game or something. I haven't been here in a couple of months. It has come a long way. It looks real nice. We are real excited to be here next year." And here's the WashTimes article. Also, Yahoo has some of the AP photos of the batting session.

More posts: Nationals Park
 
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