*I WORK, YOU WORK, WEWORK: Co-working provider WeWork has signed a 69,000-sf lease at 80 M St. SE. (Bisnow)

* NATS PARK DIGITAL SIGNS: This has been brewing for a number of weeks, and has been discussed in the comments threads, but some may still be unaware of the plans by the Nationals to install 10 large digital billboards on the ballpark's exterior. The Hill Rag wrote about it in detail in October, and last week ANC 6D's Andy Litsky offered this blistering testimony in opposition to the DC Council's Subcommittee on Urban Affairs. UPDATE: Oops, I guess the initial subcommittee vote was last week, a 4-1 approval. Washington City Paper has more on the controversy.

* COMMUNITY CENTER BACKSTORY: Capitol Hill Corner writes of how the new Capper Community Center had and then lost plans for an operator for the new building, and what it means for the center at this point.

* ANACOSTIA RIVER TRAIL EXTENSION: Back at the end of October, the stretch of the Anacostia River Trail from Benning Road to the DC/Maryland line officially opened, providing not only another five miles of trail offerings within DC but creating an all new gateway to the large Anacostia Tributary Trail System. (WashCycle)

* WSJ ON THE HOOD: If you have a Wall Street Journal subscription, here's their recent piece on the explosive growth of the neighborhood.

* CHANGING HANDS: I totally meant to mention back in July that the Empire Cab building at 37 L St. SE was sold for $6.7 million, according to WBJ (scroll down). This building, as I wrote a number of years ago, was the site in 1977 of a terrible fire where nine people died. In other changing-hands-news, a little birdie tells me that the land held by Akridge along 1st St. SE between K and L that was put on the market earlier this year is now under contract to a residential developer. I imagine we'll find out more when the sale closes in coming weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

There are also plans in the works to have after-school activities available while waiting for the operations bureaucracy to conclude, including basketball in the spiffy new gym. Keep an eye on the building's web site for additional details, or call 202-547-0581.

Although the building has been open for a number of weeks, the JDLand camera has only just now made a visit--and the resulting photo gallery is not only a trip through a rainbow of colors, but is also the swan song for JDLand Camera III, which is being retired after eight years of valiant service. (I had hoped it would be the debut of JDLand Camera IV, but the Postal Service was two hours too late.)

The full gallery is here. And here's a final before-and-after to wrap up my tracking of this project, from before the demolition of the old center's building in 2007 to the start of construction in spring 2014 to its completion:

Getting the bad news out of the way first: the negotiations between DCHA and its original unnamed choice to operate the center "reached a natural conclusion without an agreement to move forward," according to DCHA spokesman Rick White. This means that the agency is "looking at alternatives," but any new agreement does not appear to be in the immediate future. That said, I have heard unconfirmed rumors that there will be some sort of "programming" at the center this summer--if that indeed turns out to be the case, the building will at least then not stand completed-but-empty while waiting for a deal to be struck with a new operator.

But there is a more pressing issue, which is that because of construction at Van Ness Elementary, the new building has been tapped to function as the Precinct 131 polling station for DC's primary election day on Tuesday, June 14. Even though the center does not yet have its official Certificate of Occupancy, spokesman White says that a temporary certificate of occupancy is in the works, and that DCHA is "not expecting any issues around the election."

So, other than snagging a peek in the gym on Tuesday when you go vote (because OF COURSE you are going to go vote), everyone will just have to gaze longingly at the new building's exterior a little while longer. At least it looks nice in the bright early June sun.

And in case you don't quite remember what this site used to look like, this slider can help. As can the project page.

To the east, the not-minor project to do the masonry work and the siding at the 195-unit mixed-income Lofts at Capitol Quarter at 7th Street continues--apologies for only showing the rear of the building when I take a wide shot, but with the trees and the narrowness of L Street it's basically impossible for me to get a good photograph of the front. (Plus the low sun angle from late October through early March makes southern-facing photos a pretty miserable experience with a pretty miserable outcome, anyway.)

At 5th and K, the Capper Community Center's exterior isn't changing too much at this stage, but I'd get the shakes if I tried to not photograph it.

At New Jersey and Tingey, the new trapeze school building's blue-and-white exterior is mostly finished, though I'm such a bad blogger that it didn't occur to me to walk up to the big opening and peek in--but TSNYDC has posted a photo of the inside.

As for the Brig, the beer garden-to-be at 8th and L, the building itself looks pretty well finished now, though the "garden" portion of the venture does not appear to have gotten underway yet. And with two pit bulls on guard (!), I wasn't about to poke my camera through the fence for a better view.

And while I had designs on pressing my camera up against the glass at Buffalo Wild Wings on Half Street, they were having a staff training session when I arrived, and so I chickened out (Bad Blogger Data Point #2). But the gentleman I spoke with there confirmed again the Nov. 16 opening date, saying that the doors will open that day at 10 am--and that they generally have people camping out over Sunday nights to be among the first 100 customers through the door, who are then winners of the free-wings-once-a-week-for-a-year prize. Hope y'all have warm sleeping bags!

Still to come, the skeletons-and-holes report.

Since a lot of you may not remember the original building, I'm providing this photo progression, from June 2006 to right after demolition in March 2007 to now:

There hasn't yet been an announcement of who the center's operator will be, and hence the types of programming that the center will offer, but in the meantime, it's still a fresher tableau than what was there before....

Otherwise, the masonry work continues slowly at the Lofts at Capitol Quarter (lower left), while the windows are in at the new Community Center (lower middle) and the Brig beer garden at 8th and L does show evidence of progress.

Speaking of brick, up at 7th and L the Lofts at Capitol Quarter mixed-income apartment project is just starting to get its masonry on--though that's an awful lot of square footage to cover, as you look at that loooooong wall stretching west from 7th Street.

While the beer garden coming to 8th and L known as the Brig will win no awards for its speed of construction, progress is evident (below left), with light fixtures now in place along the roof line. Over at 5th and K the Community Center continues to move closer to looking like its renderings.

And thanks to everyone who stopped to say hi while I was roaming around on Sunday, though I can't imagine how people guessed that the old lady standing in the street taking pictures of construction was me.

The masonry work appears all but completed on the south end, where the gymnasium will be. If you compare these photos to the rendering, you'll see that most of the "holes" left in the construction are where glass or exterior flourishes are planned.

As for the picture at bottom right, it was my not-particularly successful attempt to show in a single shot the progress at the Community Center, the current state of the Lofts at Capitol Quarter a block away, and the boarded up windows signaling renovations at Van Ness Elementary.

* ARRIS: Let's start with the now-topped-out Arris apartment building at the Yards. In addition to its having reached its final height, the masonry work on the five lowest floors of the eastern portion of the site is pretty far along, and windows have started appearing in the second floor.

While the three "pavilions" on the western side (not seen real well in this shot, but check the rendering) will be brick-faced all the way up their eight floors, the east tower's upper façade will be all glass, with an undulation that's obvious even with just the concrete in place.

This building will have 325 rental units and 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and is expected to open in early 2016.

* PARK CHELSEA: It certainly won't win the prize as Speediest Construction Project Ever, and the countdown to the start of leasing has changed its target from July 1 to September 15, but work on the 430ish-unit rental building on New Jersey Avenue does continue. You may have seen the forms with the planets-and-the-stars design that have now been hoisted up to their final perches on the roof--I've been told this is based on Johannes Kepler's "star polygon tessellations," which I concede is way too much education for JDLand to normally pass along.

* LOFTS AT CAPITOL QUARTER AND CAPPER COMMUNITY CENTER: They may not be tall, but they are wide--as is my lens, thankfully. If you are wondering about the concrete portion on the western end of the Loft's construction, that's parking for residents of the building's 195 mixed-income units. The two projects, both along L Street between 5th and 7th, should be completed in 2016.

* THE BRIG: I certainly could have used a drink after the 11 miles of walking I did in two passes on Sunday to properly update my photo archive, but while work on the beer garden at 8th and L to be known as The Brig continues, it still has a ways to go before it begins quenching thirsts. But it's interesting to now start to see the outline of its contribution to the "skyline" along 8th.

The links above have lots more information on each project, of course. And I skipped the Hampton Inn in the roundup, but I wouldn't want it to feel left out.

Just up the block, at 7th and L, the Lofts at Capitol Quarter is starting to look like a real building as well:

Click on any and all to enlarge.