* The WashTimes's Tim Lemke says that the final pricetag for Nationals Park is coming into focus, and that it will be somewhere near $693 million.

* Tommy Wells says that the Ward 6 guest parking passes that "expired" on Dec. 31 will be honored through the end of January, and that DDOT will be mailing the 2009 passes by the end of the month. (This matches what I heard at the November meeting on the performance parking program.)

* Just outside of my jurisdiction, but to fill space it's worth noting that the Coast Guard has renewed its lease for another 10 years at the foot of Second Street, SW, in Buzzard Point. (This is where I can explain that "Near Southeast" really is different from the "Capitol Riverfront", since the BID covers Buzzard Point, but since it's not in Southeast I try desperately not to!)

* The Southeast-Southwest Freeway, the 11th Street Bridges, and the South Capitol Street (Frederick Douglass) Bridge will be restricted to buses and authorized vehicles only.

* Although no streets in Near Southeast are specifically listed in the Secret Service's batch of street closings, that doesn't mean that they aren't going to be a whole bunch of closures. I mentioned a few days back that much of Near Southeast will be bus-only parking, and apparently the specific streets have now been decided on. And, according to the city's web site on Inauguration Day Street Restrictions, the Emergency No Parking Zones will be established starting at 3 pm Monday, Jan. 19, with the streets then being closed beginning at 12:01 am Tuesday Jan. 20, through 12:01 am Wednesday, Jan. 21 to vehicular traffic except for "charter buses, metro buses, taxis, postal vehicles, law enforcement vehicles and emergency vehicles, as well as residents with government issued identification or vehicle registration showing residency inside the restricted area" (emphasis mine).

It would be great if they posted a map, because the lists of streets are pretty hard to work with. It looks like M Street and Virginia Avenue will be closed to Ninth Street, Half and First will be closed from I Street to N Street, New Jersey will be closed from I to M, and I, K, and L, will be closed to Sixth Street. So, this would mean that north/south streets from Third eastward will be open between M and the freeway.

* There's also this on the city street closure page, which I can't quite decipher: "The following access points have been identified as pedestrian-only routes to the National Mall: [...] East Capitol Street, NE to North Carolina, SE to New Jersey Avenue, SE to I Street, SE." I guess this means these streets will be closed to traffic and will be where pedestrians are funneled to? (But then, where to? Up South Capitol?) Like I said, I need a map!

More to come, I'm sure, especially once all the media's mapmakers get on the case.

My advice? Do what I'm going to do--pretend there's a snowstorm a'comin, get a week's worth of provisions ahead of time, and just hunker down until Wednesday, with no plans to go anywhere except on foot.

* ANC 6B (mostly Capitol Hill, but also including the Eighth Street area of Near Southeast) has posted its January 13 meeting agenda, and one of the items on it is "South Capitol Street Draft Environmental Impact Statement." This draft EIS, which envisions substantial changes to the section of South Capitol Street from the Southeast Freeway across the Douglass Bridge to Firth Sterling Avenue, was released last year, and at December's Anacostia Waterfront Fair it was announced that the final EIS is expected to come this spring.

It may not sound like much to get excited about, but one of the cornerstones of the final EIS should be the unveiling of the chosen design for the new Douglass Bridge. I wrote a long entry about the Draft EIS when it was released, and on my Douglass Bridge page you can also see the four preliminary designs. (And you can also relive 2007's Extreme Makeover!) Feel free to sound off in the comments on which bridge design you want--but, please, no wagering.

Also on ANC 6B's agenda is "ZC # 03-12I/03-13I, Modification to the Arthur Capper Carrollsburg PUD," which I imagine is the series of deadline extensions and other zoning items that I've previously written about. (UPDATE: This has apparently been removed from the 6B agenda, at the Housing Authority's request.)

This meeting is at the Old Naval Hospital, 921 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, at 7 pm.

* ANC 6D's monthly meeting will be on the previous night, Jan. 12, at St. Augustine's Church at 6th and M Streets, SW. No agenda yet posted. (6B usually wins this race by a country mile.)

* This Thursday (Jan. 8), Metro's Customer Service, Safety and Operations Committee will be voting on whether to authorize a mid-February hearing on the discontinuation of the N22 bus, which runs between the Union Station, Eastern Market, and the Navy Yard subway stations and which is expected to be replaced by DC Circulator route. I'm not sure why this is on the agenda again--my understanding was that they approved it in December, as did the full board. Read my previous posts with more detail on this change here and here.

Tickets are a mere $244.51 per person, says the Post. More when I get it. This is the night after the Capitol Riverfront Gala being thrown at 70 I Street. No actual inauguration-night balls for Near Southeast yet, though. Here's a comprehensive list of all the galas, balls, and other festivities planned throughout the four-day extravaganza.

* The Examiner looks (again) at the city still paying $500,000 a month in rent for 225 Virginia Avenue (aka the old Post Plant) even though there are no plans to use it, which apparently continues to drive Phil Mendelson nuts. The city requested expressions of interest from developers to take over the lease in the fall, but has yet to announce any deal. The Examiner piece frames the continued payments for an empty building against the District's budget shortfalls: "The last thing Fenty should do, Mendelson said, is 'dump the building below cost' just to escape the lease. 'It makes sense to me to use it,' he said." If you want the entire sordid past of the city's relationship with this building, browse through my 225 Virginia news items.

* Also from the Examiner, a story last week on how the murder of Diamond Teague remains unsolved: "Diamond Teague was 19 years old and going from the rough streets of D.C. on to college when he was gunned down on his Southeast Washington front stoop, and police are still looking for his killer. Teague had earned a scholarship to the University of the District of Columbia by helping with projects for the Earth Conservation Corps, a nonprofit organization for disadvantaged youth. Teague was the drummer at Galilee Baptist Church and an avid basketball player, and friends and family said he had managed to avoid the street life and violence that had marred his neighborhood." The park named in his honor is expected to open this spring.

UPDATE: Shoot, I meant to include this, from WTOP: "The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed closing the Potomac and Anacostia rivers for the 11 days surrounding the inauguration. [...] Boats already docked or anchored in that area before Jan. 14 could stay. The Anacostia River would have the same restrictions from New York Avenue/Route 50 to the the Potomac River. It's likely the the closures will go into effect at 4 a.m. Jan. 14 and last until 10 p.m. Jan. 25."

For more information, check the official web site, and the FAQ.

So, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and Happy Holidays from the entire staff of JDLand.com!

* It's confirmed that Artomatic will be held in Near Southeast in May and June of 2009.

* The opening date for Diamond Teague Park continues to be set at March of '09. However, the BID's executive director said that Canal Park would be coming "in late 2010."

* The Capitol Riverfront area (which is a bit larger than my Near Southeast domain, since it also includes Buzzard Point) now has 1,100 residents.

Hopefully they'll be posting the spiffy Annual Report online, since it gives a lot of detail about development in the Capitol Riverfront area and the work that the BID does to promote and "brand" the neighborhood. (Though JDLand readers will be familiar with most of it already.) Best stat? The BID's Clean and Safe team members collected 3,600 bags of trash this year.

The keynote address was given by Greg Leisch of Delta Associates, and provided a flurry of statistics about the residential and commercial office space markets in DC compared to the rest of the country (in short: It Could Be Worse). Leisch said that he felt that the Capitol Riverfront area is well-positioned to benefit from the recovery that's expected to begin in late 2009/early 2010, in much the same way that the East End did after the 1990-91 recession and the Capitol Hill submarket did after the 2001-2002 recession. He also said that only about 1,600 new condos will have been sold across the Metro area in 2008. Ouch. You can see some of the stats from this presentation on the Delta web site.

UPDATE: From the BID, here's the Annual Report, and Greg Leisch's presentation.

On Tuesday night the Office of Planning and the Deputy Mayor's office held a third public meeting as part of the planning process undertaken this year for Boathouse Row, the stretch of land along the western shore of the Anacostia from the 11th Street Bridges upstream. Much of this area has been owned and managed by the federal government for years and years, but is part of the batch of parcels being transferred back to DC (and on Thursday the mayor will be announcing was supposed to be announcing that this swap is finally complete, but the event has been postponed because of a scheduling issue with the Secretary of the Interior). With the District preparing to take control of the property, and with the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative looking to transform the city's relationship with the river, it was decided to take a step back and do some "visioning" of what this area could be if given the proper TLC. (Michael Durso of DMPED also took great pains to emphasize that there are no plans to dispose of this land to developers or other interests.)

One big surprise for this newcomer was that the city does not expect to begin any of the transformation of this area for another *ten* years or so, given the constraints of large close-by projects starting in the next few years such as the 11th Street Bridges rehabilitation, remediation of the contaminated Washington Gas site east of 12th Street, and WASA's Deep Tunnel project. (And I will admit that hearing that ten-year timeframe made me feel a little less bad about having come to this planning process so late in the game!)

Also, the slides from the Tuesday meeting aren't yet posted online, so I think I will wait to delve into the details of all of this until those are available. But the study has now boiled down the wants and needs of various stakeholders into two concept alternatives, one of which imagines a $38 million project, $23 million of which would be dredging to allow for deeper-water boats farther up river (at least, that's how this non-boating-savvy blogger understood it), and the other which determines uses of the riverfront and the water if dredging does not take place, at a cost of about $13 million. Both concepts incorporate sustainable design, linked open spaces allowing for activities such as picnic areas, and amenities and shared uses like a small canteen and bike racks (and perhaps a bike rental oulet).

It's expected that the final report will be released in early January, followed by a 30-day comment period.

In the meantime, the operations of the Anacostia Community Boathouse Association will be moving from its spot in between the 11th Street Bridges spans to the marina just east of the Pennsylvania Avenue/Sousa Bridge (outside my boundaries!) in 2009; both Boathouse Row design concepts have ACBA returning after the bridge work is completed, perhaps with an expanded presence on the land just east of the bridges.

(Also, for people interested in the planned "boulevardization" of the old Southeast Freeway lanes that run from 11th Street to Barney Circle: it was mentioned that this project probably won't happen for another 10 years. But the planners did do some blue-skying of how this work--and perhaps the relocation of the CSX rail lines that also cut off Boathouse Row from its neighbors--could someday allow for this isolated patch of land to be reconnected to Capitol Hill and the rest of the city.)