Bill B16-0929, the "Payment In Lieu of Taxes Act of 2004 Amendment And Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg Public Improvements Revenue Bonds Approval Act of 2006," has been introduced before the City Council. This bill will allow the sale of bonds to raise $35.1 million to fund the necessary infrastructure improvements (streets, sidewalks, walkways, streetscapes, utility lines, etc.) around the Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopment. You may recall that two PILOT funding bills were approved in June of this year to help fund the Southeast Federal Center redevelopment (which, like Capper, is being developed by Forest City Enterprises). I suppose you're now wanting me to actually EXPLAIN the concept of PILOT funding, which might be asking a little much. From reading the bill, it sounds to me like property owners within the Capper/Carrollsburg PILOT area will have their tax payments placed not into the city's General Fund, but into a separate Capper PILOT Fund, which will be used to pay back the principal and interest on the bonds. Wikipedia's PILOT entry can help out a bit, too, this line especially: "PILOTs may be negotiated in specific circumstances, as when an arrangement is made for a corporation or institution to build a facility on public land without assuming ownership of the land," which perfectly describes both Capper/Carrollsburg and the Southeast Federal Center. UPDATE: Here's a better explanation, from someone "in the know": "Essentially a PILOT is like a TIF, except with property taxes. Since the property wasn't on the tax rolls before, we can capture 100% of the new property taxes, although once it is stabilized, we will likely be utilizing less than half of the total property taxes allotted to the project. The rest will likely [go] back to the District (though it could also be used to superamortize the loan so that the entire sum will go back to the District sooner)." UPDATE II: There's a hearing in front of the council's Committee on Finance and Revenue on this bill on Oct. 23 at 1 pm. UPDATE, 10/20: The Washington Business Journal (subscription only) gets to the heart of what's really going on--the Hope VI funding for Capper is $35 million short, so they're wanting to use this PILOT to cover the shortfall. But since the city's PILOT program is capped at $250 million, and DOT and the Southeast Federal Center have already chewed through most of that, attempts are being made to raise the PILOT cap to $500 million to then allow Capper to get a $35 million piece of the PILOT pie.

This is not something I'm going to continue to track, but I know some readers are interested in knowing if former Near Southeast nightclubs Wet and Edge are going to reopen somewhere else. There is an Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration hearing on Dec. 13 on Wet/Edge's petition to move their operations to a new location at 2046 West Virginia Ave., NE. So if you're wanting to know more, you might want to keep an eye on the ABRA web site and its calendar (which doesn't get updated much in advance of the weekly hearings).