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An article in Friday's WashPost about when (oh, when) a new owner for the Nats will be named says that the city expects "Major League Baseball to name a new owner of the Washington Nationals in time for Thursday's groundbreaking for a $611 million stadium project" (emphasis mine). That would be Thursday, May 4 for those of you counting along. No mention of a time or anything, I'll keep digging. It also says (and this makes sense) that the groundbreaking is the day after the financing bonds are to be sold on Wall Street. UPDATE: I hear through the grapevine that this will be at 10 am.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Another long-planned development project is now moving forward--a correspondent tipped me to a newly posted sign announcing that 250 M Street will be arriving in 2008. This is a 212,500-sq-ft office building by the William C. Smith company, to be built right across the street from the DOT HQ (currently there's a parking lot on that site). It will take up all of the M Street frontage on that block, but won't cover the entire block--there will be an apartment building associated with Capper/Carrollsburg on the rear of the lot, facing L. See the Jones Lang LaSalle database for more information, and check out my tossed-together new page for the project.
 

Clark/Hunt/Smoot has posted an updated Bid/Purchasing Schedule for the ballpark--even if you're not a construction company looking to get in on the action, it's oddly fascinating to see how specific it all is, as well as seeing the timeline of what's bidded on when.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

I've made some changes to navigation on the site, which I hope might help on some of the pages that are really much too full of information. I've created "tabs" with topic areas that you can click on to see specific portions of info on a page--for instance, the Capitol Hill Tower page now has "tabs" for Overview, Courtyard by Marriott, Capitol Hill Tower, and News Items. (Just go see and do some clicking, it's hard to explain; I've added some photos to each section to make it worth your while.) Another example is on the right side of the home page, below the map--I've had for a while a huge "Directory of Current/Future Projects," which gave all the basics on every project in the 'Hood, but which was hard to grasp because the table ran so deep. So I've now used tabs to separate the Projects Directory into Residential, Office, Recreation/Retail/Hotel, and Mixed-Use. So check it out. (I've tested these updates in IE 6.x and Firefox 1.07--if you're using anything older than that, it's time for you to upgrade!) Oh, and I've made the construction slideshows I've done much more prominent on each project's page, which I should have done a long time ago!
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(This is WAAAY over my head, but I provide it as a public service to the three of you who do understand it.) Fitch has rated the bonds that will be sold next week to finance the new baseball stadium: "Fitch has assigned ratings to the following series of ballpark revenue bonds to be issued by the District of Columbia: $81.34 million taxable series 2006A-1 'BBB'; $108.88 million taxable series 2006A-2 'BBB'; $320.39 million tax-exempt series 2006B-1 'BBB+'; $25 million tax-exempt series 2006B-2 (auction rate securities) 'BBB+'. The bonds are scheduled to be sold the week of May 2. The series 2006A-1 bonds will be a limited offering with UBS Investment Bank as placement agent. The series 2006A-2 and 2006B bonds will be sold through negotiation with a syndicate led by UBS Investment Bank. The Rating Outlook on all four series is Stable. Proceeds will be used for construction of a new baseball stadium along the Anacostia River."
UPDATE: Here's an AP story about this, indicating that these are low ratings, because "a utilities tax, a stadium concessions tax and rent from the Washington Nationals could fluctuate, making them a less stable way to pay back investors." And the bonds will be sold May 3.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Thanks to a tip from a correspondent, I can confirm that there is now demolition underway at the ballpark site, at its southernmost corner (South Capitol and P and Potomac). They are also "demolishing" (i.e., digging up) the triangle of empty land at 1st, P, and Potomac known as Reservation 247. Plus, now that the asphalt plant at Half and O has been dismantled, they're also digging up and clearing that lot as well. And they are in the process of putting up more fencing around the perimeter of the site--looks like they will have O Street at South Capitol fenced off by the end of the day. So while there hasn't been any sort of official groundbreaking--and I haven't heard whether there will be or not--clearly they are now moving forward.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

The Naval Historical Center at the Navy Yard has announced its public programs for the month of May, and I've added them to my Upcoming Events list. UPDATE: The events calendar on the historical center's site is now updated.

More posts: Navy Yard
 

It's a good day for tips from readers! Another correspondent passes along this piece from Shopping Center Business magazine, "Washington DC Focuses on the Waterfront," a roundtable with lots of big names in DC development and government discussing the state of retail in downtown DC. One of the participants was Forest City Washington, which is developing Capper/Carrollsburg and the Southeast Federal Center, plus is one of the four companies working on the Ballpark District. There's no real *news* on the projects, but they indicate that they are getting a tremendous amount of interest from retailers who want to be part of the combined 300,000 sq ft of retail planned for Capper and the SFC. They also say that "bulldozers will be moving by the end of the year at Southeast Federal Center." Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the box highlighting Forest City, with the following sentence that will warm the hearts of Near Southeast residents and neighbors: "Forest City Washington believes a grocery store would be a good addition, and several are interested." Yes! And please hurry!
More posts: Capper, Retail, staddis, The Yards
 

A sharp-eyed correspondent passes along this press release from WMATA, announcing that Metro is finally removing the buses parked on a leased lot at Half and O, land that was seized by the city via eminent domain for the new ballpark. (The buses will be moving to a lot leased from Pepco at 1st and R, SW, with the city picking up the "costs associated with the move.") With this, all stadium footprint land has been vacated by its (former) tenants. Is the start of demolition still coming May 1 or thereabouts? Haven't heard anything more one way or the other. Tick tick tick!
 

Getting to be a busy time of photo-taking, so I've added a smattering of photos here and there to my Capper/Carrollsburg, JPI Residentials, Capitol Hill Tower, DOT HQ, New Jersey Avenue, M Street, and new baseball stadium pages. Let the icon be your guide. With demolition continuing at Capper and JPI's 70 I Street, I expect to be updating those pages steadily over the next few weeks. (They appear to be moving more quickly with the Capper demolition at 3rd, 4th, K, and L, and I expect the block to the north, between 3rd, 4th, K, and I, to be next to come down.) And starting soon I'll be updating 20 M Street much more frequently, with the tower's construction finally coming up out of the hole and above ground level. And then there'll be that stadium demolition and construction....
 

Short notice, but there's a board meeting of the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation on Friday, April 21, at 5:15 pm - here's the agenda. You can also see the 2006 grants that the AWC is awarding to local organizations.
 

I'm well aware that the home page of this site is a bit, well, dense. There's a lot of information on Near Southeast to get across, and it's not easy to do it in such confined quarters. I'm not sure whether this really helps or not, but I've made the main map a bit showier--now, as you move your cursor, you'll see at top brief summaries of the various projects, and a small (very small) illustration at the top right. (I'm using photos if the development is well on its way, architect renderings if a project is on the boards or just started, and icky photos of what a lot currently looks like if I can't get the developers to hand over any drawings.) Start moving your cursor around, and see what happens.
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A correspondent reports that the long-shuttered row homes in the 900 block of New Jersey Avenue started being demolished today. That block will eventually be the site of a 238-unit residential tower by JPI--everything currently on the block except the car repair shop at the corner of 1st and K will be demolished to make way for the construction, although there's still a few months before the Nexus Gold Club will close (I don't know an exact date), so get your ogling of naked chicks in sooner rather than later. You can see "before" photos of the houses being demolished on my JPI Residential Projects page (toward the bottom, so do some scrolling)--I'll add demolition photos as soon as the sun moves to an optimum position.

 

If I hadn't been at the ANC6D meeting last week, I wouldn't have known about this (because I can't find evidence of it anywhere else), but there is to be a Community Update Meeting about the ballpark on April 19 at 6:30 pm at the Friendship Baptist Church, 900 Delaware Ave., SW. It is being run by the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, and apparently they plan on making these meetings a regular occurrence to keep the neighborhood updated. (But it'd sure be nice if they'd announce it on their web site!)

More posts: ANC News, Nationals Park
 

I know, it's a strange strange thing, but I'm continuing to track the gas prices as displayed at the Sunoco Station at Half and M. (I started this last year when I realized that I had many pictures from the last three years of the Sunoco's prices at the edges of shots focusing on 20 M or other locations.) See the latest numbers, although those of you who drive a lot are already well aware of the spike over the last two months....

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Yesterday I led a tour of the stadium site for the Nationals Fan Club, which was a good bit of fun. We did find out that there's now fences surrounding the southern two-thirds of the stadium site, from 1st to South Capitol to Potomac to O. (Those streets are all still open, but Half is now closed from O to Potomac.) The official start of construction is supposed to be May 1 or thereabouts, but at last week's ANC 6D meeting a representative of Clark/Hunt/Smoot did say that they are already doing some work on the southern portion of the site.
More posts: ANC News, Nationals Park
 

The National Capital Planning Commission has posted the agenda for its May 4 meeting, which includes an informational presentation on the proposed new South Capitol Street Bridge; the meeting will be at 401 9th Street, NW at 12:30 pm. Note that later that same day is the DDOT South Capitol Street Community Update Meeting, at 6 pm at Van Ness Elementary (1150 5th Street SE).
 

WTOP is reporting that, in order to have the new baseball stadium meet "environmentally friendly" design standards, an additional $5-$10 million will have to be spent. The December 2004 law passed by the city council requires the stadium to be "green", says Phil Mendelson, but the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission has written a letter to the Mayor and the council that appears to disagree--and the council has written a letter disagreeing with that disagreement. Since this additional money is above and beyond the $611 million spending cap, it's not known where the money would be coming from.
More posts: Nationals Park
 

In today's Post (well, in some of them, depending on which Extra you receive) is "For Commuters, A New Way to Travel Through the District," a good overview piece about the plans for a new South Capitol Street/Frederick Douglass Bridge. The article doesn't have anything new, but it brings together all the bits and pieces that have come out over the past months about the new bridge. It mentions the public meeting scheduled for May 4, and also confirms that sometime this summer two blocks of the "elevated" South Capitol Street (from O Street to Potomac Avenue) will be dismantled, allowing South Capitol Street to be "at-grade" alongside the stadium site. And it also says, as we've heard previously, that construction would not begin before 2011; the final design of the bridge will be chosen this summer, after the Environmental Impact Study is completed. Cost estimates range from $285 million to $392 million, based on the design. Make sure to go to the poll to vote for your favorite design!
 

The Post does the now-ubiquitous story on how the land rush in Near Southeast is forcing out long-time neighborhood nightclubs ("Forced Out by Baseball, Whither the Strip Club?")--this time, the focus is on the Nexus Gold Club, whose landlord sold the property last year to make way for one of JPI's residential projects. The story recounts that the Nexus appears to be having just as much trouble as the now-closed O Street gay clubs in finding a place to move to, even with all the good deeds that the owner has done for the neighborhood over the years. The story says that the club must be out by December 2006, but given the speed with which JPI is moving, and also given some rumors I've heard, I would not be surprised if it's more like early fall.
 
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