Nothing in this WashTimes piece will be news for people who wander by here on a regular basis, but "Economy halts developers' ballpark plans" is a good survey that's probably still worth a read in case you've missed something. The crux is that the current economy has put an end to building on spec--"'Until you're getting your office building 70 percent leased up, you're not moving forward,' said Michael Stevens, executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District." And with things as they are, companies aren't moving to new office space, either. There's also this: "Monument Vice President Russell Hines said the financing difficulty is not because of pre-leasing requirements but rather demands for larger amounts of collateral on loans. Lenders once were willing to finance 75 percent of a project with only the project itself as collateral. Now, however, companies ask developers to put up additional assets to back the loan, even for just 50 percent financing."

* A reminder that Friday night (Oct. 24) is the "Night at the Yards" fundraiser for Living Classrooms of the National Capital Region. Individual tickets are $125 in advance, $135 at the door for the event to be held in a big tent at Fourth and Tingey, with music by the English Beat and Rita Rocks. Living Classrooms is planning to eventually build its new main campus building on the eastern end of the waterfront park at the Yards, near the Navy Yard.

Two upcoming events, mentioned in the Capitol Riverfront BID's e-mail-only newsletter:

* No big news out of yesterday's WMATA board meetings--the board gave Metro staff the go-ahead to negotiate a deal with a developer for the 14,000-sq-ft Navy Yard chiller plant site at Half and L, but didn't say in public session who the developer is or what the project might be. The only tidbits in the resolutions were that the project should be LEED certified and that it should be required to make a contribution to the city's affordable housing fund (both of which, I believe, would be the case anyway given the city's new green building and inclusionary zoning laws unless there's some WMATA loophole I'm unaware of).

This is kind of old, but I only heard about it after the fact--on July 1, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton held a "Capitol Riverfront BID briefing" at the US DOT HQ as part of her continuing efforts to encourage federal agencies to move to "developing" areas of DC. We heard last week that the Department of Agriculture is looking around down here, and perhaps the FBI as well. Here's Norton's press release on the briefing--I'm interested in the paragraph near the bottom listing the area's coming amenities, where it says "two first class supermarkets are planned." We know that there's space for one in the ground floor of the proposed office building at 401 M Street at The Yards, which isn't scheduled to be completed until 2011--I don't know about any firm plans for another one.