Bud says that there won't be a new Nationals owner by the time the owners meet next week in Milwaukee. He's still interviewing prospective ownerships groups. (Oh, and there's no lease agreement yet, either.)

For those of you who just can't get enough of zoning regulations, here's the final rulemaking and zoning order published in the Nov. 4 DC Register that amended the Capitol Gateway Overlay District regulations to include specifications for the ballpark. (Still waiting for Chapter 16/Capitol Gateway to reappear in the online DC Municipal Regulations!) Note that the design of the ballpark itself will still have to go through zoning hearings; nothing's appeared on the Zoning Commission schedule yet, but there's been hints of a January 2006 hearing date--I imagine that any delay past January on the zoning process would possibly start to impact the start of construction. Tick, tick, tick...!

On Nov. 1 the city recorded in its real property database the change in ownership of those baseball stadium properties seized by the city via eminent domain. Out of the 23 landowners, 16 had their property taken--presumably the other seven have reached a sale agreement with the city, although those sales have yet to be recorded. You can see which were seized on my Stadium Offers page; those 16 owners will now go through the courts to have the fair price determined for their land (presuming they fail to prove that the seizure was illegal, which most observers seem to think is likely given the Supreme Court's Kelo decision).