On Nov. 2, the National Capital Planning Commission will consider approval of the design of Washington Canal Park, and someone was nice enough to pass along to me the Canal Park Concept Submission document that was prepared for the NCPC (and also the US Commission of Fine Arts's meeting on Oct. 19)--40 pages of incredible detail, with a long design narrative and many many drawings. UPDATE, 11/2: At today's NCPC meeting, the commission "commented favorably" on the design concept. The next stage will be the preliminary design stage, and the NCPC has requested that AWC provide "More fully developed streetscape designs at street edges and crosswalks; Simplified overall design with consideration of durable materials and elements that require less routine maintenance; Lighting design that has minimal visual impact on adjacent streets and mixed-use development; Details of water elements that demonstrates their character when water is turned off; and Design details indicating accommodations for the physically disabled, including persons with visual or hearing impairments." Finally, the commission "commended the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and its design team for integrating low-impact development strategies that will minimize the effects of storm water runoff from the site."

I don't quite know what to make of this, but here goes, from NBC4: "The fast-redeveloping Southeast Waterfront next to the Navy Yard and near the new baseball stadium is being turned into new offices, condos and shops. But, the area will now be called 'The Yards,' in honor of its nautical history." Putting aside for the moment why they didn't instead choose a catchy name like "JDLand", I'm trying to divine from this piece actually what area they're talking about. My initial thought is that this is just for the 44-acre Southeast Federal Center land, which is indeed next to the Navy Yard and near the stadium, and is in the hands of a single private developer (Forest City Washington) and also the Feds, which dovetails with the spot being described as a "federal entity" at one point in the article. If I'm guessing correctly, I actually don't mind rechristening the SFC as "The Yards." But if they're trying to rename all of Near Southeast, including the Ballpark District and everything, we might have a problem. Anyone out there (with CB Richard Ellis or with the city) have any light to shed? And, if I pegged it correctly as being the Southeast Federal Center, does this mean that they're about to get moving on their first phase? UPDATE: A little birdie passed along this link to (not quite launched) dcyards.com, confirming that "The Yards" is indeed the Southeast Federal Center. And construction apparently will begin in 2007. Man, I'll tell ya, NBC4 had to work pretty hard to make sure that almost no useful information was in that article, seeing as the who/where/when (Developer? Location? Timeline?) were all AWOL.

From the Post: "The District government's chief financial officer warned yesterday of serious penalties if the city fails to provide parking garages for the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium, encouraging the D.C. Council to reconsider a proposal it voted down last week. In an eight-page letter to council members, Natwar M. Gandhi says the city faces significant financial liabilities if members of the council continue to oppose a plan to build aboveground garages at the ballpark near the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington. The city might have to pay tens of millions of dollars to the Nationals for failing to meet contractual obligations, and the District could suffer shortfalls in potential stadium revenue." Same words as always--spending cap, underground, aboveground, zoning, revenue streams, yadda yadda--just arranged differently. Here's CFO Gandhi's letter, containing much detail, spelling out the options, etc. UPDATE: Here's the Examiner's story.

Monday's DC Examiner reports: "The Transportation Planning Board added more than $1 billion in projects for the District to the region's long-range transportation plan, according to officials. The stratagem, called the Constrained Long Range Plan, estimates about $4.5 billion will be available each year for the next 24 years to complete projects in Maryland, Virginia and the District. Projects can only be added to the board's long range plan if there is a solid funding mechanism in place. " Three of the DC projects will impact Near Southeast: the rehabilitation of South Capitol Street including transformation of the street into an at-grade boulvard from I Street to N Street and the construction of a new Frederick Douglass Bridge (costing $625 million and completed in 2015); the reconfiguration and reconstruction of the 11th Street Bridges (costing $377 million and completed in 2011); and $3 million for the Anacostia Streetcar Study, which would run light rail across the 11th Street Bridges from Anacostia down M Street SE to South Capitol Street. (The first phase of actual construction of the Streetcar Project has been added to the CLRP as well.) Here's an explanation of the CLRP as well as the Transportation Improvement Plan, which describes the schedule for federal funds obligated to state and local projects.

The Capitol Quarter sales office will begin accepting contracts on Saturday (tomorrow, Oct. 21) for the first phase of townhomes being sold (I believe there are about 20 19 total market-rate and workforce units available in this first batch); I'll wander over a bit before 11 to see how many people are camped on the front doorstep; be sure to wave for the camera if you're one of them. UPDATE: Maybe I should try to remember what I've already written--the first 20 workforce units will be available via lottery on Nov. 18, not tomorrow. Duh. Starting tomorrow there will be 19 market-rate homes going up for sale. And word is that camping out began on Wednesday.... UPDATE, Saturday a.m.: 19 units released for sale, 19 buyers in line (and more turned away). So if you didn't make it down there, you'll have to wait for the next batch.

At yesterday's WMATA board meeting, a resolution was approved to expand the Navy Yard Metro station at a cost of $20 million (to be paid with federal funds). The changes will be, to quote the Post, to "increase the number of fare gates and vending machines, add two elevators and relocate the station kiosk, fare gates and fare vendors from the mezzanine to the west entrance. The changes are planned for completion before the first home game of the 2008 baseball season." At the same time, the board approved the sale of the WMATA land above the Navy Yard station and the adjoining parking lot to Monument Realty, and also approved a Construction Agreement with Monument, whereby Monument will handle the construction of the station upgrades in concert with it's construction of an office building with ground-floor retail on the corner of Half and M. Monument has also agreed to reserve 20 percent of the residential units in it's other Half Street project for low- and moderate-income purchasers. And buried in the Construction Agreement documents I found a pretty snazzy rendering of Monument's planned building at Half and M, which I've added to my Ballpark District page (scroll down a tad past the map). The Construction Agreement also has detailed drawings of exactly what will be done to the station. You can also read the Sept. 21 WMATA Board Meeting minutes to see the discussion about the sale of the land. Or you can really go wild and listen to the audio from yesterday's meetings. And here's the Examiner's story on the agreements and plans.

City Council hearings have now been scheduled for October 31 for three Near Southeast alley closing bills (Monument's Square 700/west side and Square 701 requests, and William C. Smith's Square 737/739 request). I've added them to my busy Neighborhood Events Calendar; I've also (belatedly) added the DC Register announcement of the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration hearing on the license request for a new liquor store at 156 L Street (the old Star Market) scheduled for Nov. 8. Note that the Square 701/east side alley closing bill had its hearing on Oct. 10. UPDATE, 10/20: The starting times of the three alley closing hearings on Oct. 31 have been revised, and an additional council roundtable has been scheduled for the same day on the Capper alley closings and new streets bill. All the hearing notices are available in this file, which also includes the notices on the Oct. 23 hearing on the Capper PILOT funding bill and also an Oct. 26 roundtable on LSDBE participation in the baseball stadium. My Neighborhood Events Calendar has been updated as well. Also, the Square 701/east side alley closing bill has been placed on the council's Nov. 14 consent agenda.

Sharp-eyed visitors to the site might have noticed the new "Dataset" links that arrived atop the home page and in the right-hand margin of other pages early this week (a "soft launch", I guess). Over the past few months the DC government has been launching various RSS feeds, and I've built an application to cull out the Near Southeast items from their Crime Incidents and Public Space and Building Permits feeds and display them here, both in individual archives but also in a new Near Southeast Data Feeds box here on the home page. These feeds update daily; when each launched, they also included some amount of historical data (crime incidents back to Jan. 2005 and public space permits back to 2000; the building permits feed is just getting going, seems to be working out some kinks, and has so far provided data from Oct. 2006 and some records from 2003-2005). Then, drunk with power, I decided to also add in basic list views of the Property Sales and Assessments data since 1999 I've accumulated for Near Southeast parcels (neither are available in RSS feeds). Assessments data will only update yearly; sales data should be updated weekly, but it's usually about six weeks behind. This of course is all DC goverment data that I'm merely filtering and displaying--I just take what they give me, and have no responsibility for errors, omissions, etc. Data from approximately the last seven days will display in the box on the home page, but sometimes old records get updated, so the display might sometimes be a bit squirrelly. Just always remember--JDLand is the web site where You Get What You Pay For :-).

Debate is still ongoing (and with this bunch, it could go on a long time, especially with the demagoguery and fibbing coming from the dais), but it looks like there aren't nine votes to pass the declaration of an emergency to (I think) allow for making changes to the stadium financing cap that would then allow any of the various parking solutions to go forward. Jack Evans gave a pretty impassioned speech that, as some folks have been saying for a while now, just because development doesn't get fired up right away at the north end of the stadium site, all is not lost in the Ballpark District, and in fact he used the MCI Center/Gallery Place example, that the north end of the MCI Center block stayed empty for years, and no one can say that Chinatown and the MCI/Verizon Center area has suffered. (Tom Knott of the WashTimes said the same thing recently, hat tip to Gallery Place Living). Evans said that if there are surface lots on those blocks for a few years, it won't be the end of the world, and also said that at this point fixing the parking issue is no longer a council/legislative issue, that no one has come up with a way to break the $611 million cost cap, and that other DC government entities should come up with a solution. Marion Barry is still pushing his buddy Herb Miller's plan, Catania is still calling CFO Gandhi a liar, and so really nothing new is happening. UPDATE: The vote to declare an emergency was 7-6, it needed nine votes, so it failed. Now they're moving to Marion Barry's bill to move forward the Herb Miller garages plan. But because Barry's bill would impact the cap, it's being ruled "Out of Order." He wants to change the bill so that it would do nothing more than transfer control of the garages land from the SEC to the AWC, but Chairman Cropp still wants a fiscal impact statement on that change from the CFO's office. So they've moved on for now. UPDATE II: The council has voted down Barry's blll 11-1, with council members saying that they're not prepared to move on an emergency basis to transfer the land to the AWC from DCSEC, that there are still way too many issues to be figured out. So, where do we stand? With it all being punted back to the Mayor and the DCSEC and the Lerners. UPDATE III: Here's the Post story on the day's events. Mayor Baseball sums it up: "Take any major project from the pyramids to Stonehenge. The stupid parking lot has taken more hours and meetings per parking space. It's incredible." UPDATE IV: And here's the WashTimes piece.

Faison Enterprises and Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds are holding a ceremonial groundbreaking (with Most-Likely-To-Be Mayor Fenty in attendance) for the Onyx on First residential project, on Nov. 1 at 10:00 am. This is the 260-unit residential building at 1100 First Street SE; the project will also "include a rooftop pool, underground parking, a fitness center, an outdoor courtyard, a game room, and great views of the city from the upper floors. Condos will range from studios to 2-bedrooms, and prices are anticipated to start in the upper $200s." UPDATE: Here's a GlobeSt.com blurb on the project.

From NBC4: "News4 has learned that D.C. Councilmember and mayoral candidate Adrian Fenty is talking with Mayor Anthony Williams about a new plan to build about 1,200 parking spaces on the south side of the stadium rather than on the north side. Sources said the change would make the garages cheaper to build and still leave land on the north side for development of retail stores, restaurants and housing. Sources said the Fenty plan would cost about $56 million compared to the mayor's price tag of about $80 million. Details of the new proposal are still being worked out between Fenty, the mayor, developers and the Lerner family that owns the baseball team. The new proposal could come before the D.C. Council as soon as Wednesday." Very interesting, and might be possible given the extra space on the south end of the stadium site. We shall see what arises. [NBC4 has now updated its story to remove the references to the south side of the stadium.] UPDATE: Here's the Post's article, which says nothing about the south side of the stadium concept mentioned by NBC4, instead saying that two three-story garages would be built aboveground on the north side of the stadium. The Post says that Fenty's plan has the support of CFO Gandhi and that the Nationals ownership group "was receptive to the plan." More: "Fenty said his plan would maintain the city's $611 million cost cap on the project, although it would require tens of millions of dollars in additional stadium-generated revenue that the city otherwise would be free to spend on other needs." And: "A critical aspect of the proposal would require the council to override a D.C. Zoning Commission decision from July that bans free-standing parking garages. Fenty aides said the council can sidestep zoning regulations for government projects." Apparently they're talking about building the aboveground garages in time for the 2008 opening, but the "structures would be reinforced to accommodate additional development on top in later seasons." Another wild ride at the Wilson Building appears to be at hand. UPDATE II: And here is the WashTimes piece, summarizing three of the plans (by Williams, Barry, and Fenty) currently being floated to fix the parking issue, but describes the Fenty plan as being on the south side of the stadium. And I wonder how long it'll be before this AP piece posted at WJLA is corrected, because I'm pretty sure they'd have a hard time putting 12,000 spaces on the site! UPDATE III: Don't forget that DC Council sessions are available via live streaming.

A quick roundup of Near Southeast-related doings at Monday night's ANC 6D meeting. After a plea from 6D07 commissioner Robert Siegel, the ANC voted to support the previously-voted-down alley closing request on the east side of Square 701 (between Cushing and 1st streets), saying in effect that a $95,000 community amenities proffer is not something that should be turned down. Monument Realty came before the commission to request support for it's two alley closing bills (in Squares 700 and 701 in the Ballpark District), and the request was referred to the ANC's Development Subcommittee for further discussions about Monument's community amenities package, which includes a pledge of up to 20% affordable housing in the residential project at Half and N, LSDBE participation, LEED standards, and an offer to spend approximately $500,000 to upgrade the electrical/HVAC systems at Amidon Elementary School (but there's some question as to whether Amidon will be open past 2007). Finally, the ANC voted not to support the request for a liquor license to open a liquor store at the old Star Market site at 2nd and L (the license hearing is Nov. 8). I'll link to the Hill Rag/Voice of the Hill reports on these meetings when available for additional details since it must be admitted that I bailed before the meeting was over and am relying on a vast network of informants and stringers to provide the few meager details I included here.

Since I know this will back in the news any second now, here is the DC CFO's Oct. 2 Fiscal Impact Statement on how the draft bill being shopped around by Marion Barry to get the Herb Miller/Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness plan back on track to put garages on the north end of the stadium site will result in the busting of the $611 spending cap the council placed on the ballpark project. And there's a bonus surprise! At the end of the FIS is the draft of the bill itself. (Also, just for the heck of it, here's CFO Gandhi's testimony back in July on the Miller garages plan.) Back on Oct. 4, news reports said that Mayor Williams told the council that he supported Barry's bill with several amendments that addressed Gandhi's concerns. There was talk of this bill coming before the Council at it's session this coming Wednesday, but it's not yet on the schedule. UPDATE: The city council schedule for tomorrow (Wednesday) has now been updated to show so many different ballpark-related items on the agenda that I'm not going to even try to figure out what's what. We'll see what transpires on the morrow....

Yet another Near Southeast-related bill has been introduced to the DC Council--this one is B16-0932, the "Square 770, Lot 802 Securitization Act of 2006." My not-so-learned reading of the bill tells me that this bill is authorizing the issuing of bonds not to exceed $140 million (principal), $40 million of which will go toward funding a portion of the costs of the five-acre Anacostia Waterfront Park planned along the river between 2nd and 4th Streets (within the Southeast Federal Center land), as well as the infrastructure improvements needed to allow for public access to the site. An additional $75 million will help fund other (unnamed) Anacostia Waterfront Initiative infrastructure improvements. The bill also sets up the DOT HQ's parcel (Square 770, Lot 802) to now be exempt from property taxes and instead have those payments go into the new Anacostia Waterfront Park Fund, to be used to repay the financing of the bonds and other expenses related to the park. You can read more about this PILOT plan in this June 2 post. UPDATE: There is also now PR16-1004, which appears to be amending the earlier DOT PILOT bills a touch. There is also a DOT PILOT technical amendment being voted on as emergency legislation at the Oct. 18 city council session--might be the same as PR16-1004, but I can't tell for sure. UPDATE, 11/2: Here is the actual resolution that was passed on Oct. 18 on an emergency basis, PR16-1039, The "DOT Pilot Revision Emergency Approval Resolution of 2006."

A beautiful fall day on Saturday meant that I had no choice but to go on a photo-taking expedition: see my photos of the new ballpark, Capper Seniors #2, and 20 M Street.

Just a reminder that the Capitol Quarter sales office will open on Saturday Oct. 14 at 11 am for it's one-week "sneak preview" of the development (meaning no contracts or appointments). I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview today of the sneak preview--if you're at all interested in Near Southeast, even if you're not currently thinking about moving to Capitol Quarter, you must go see the model of the developed neighborhood, it's absolutely stunning. I took a bunch of photos of it and have put them on my Capitol Quarter page, sprinkling them throughout and displaying them alongside the "live" photos of the area. Sales will begin first-come first-serve at 11 am Oct. 21 for the first phase of market-rate and workforce-rate townhomes. Prices and floor plans are supposed to be posted any second now on the official web site. One thing to remember as you look at the model--the low-, middle-, and high-income units are all mixed in with each other, sometimes multi-unit low-income rentals will have facades that make them look like two townhomes, so from the outside you can't tell which units are which. UPDATE: Prices and floor plans are now posted, on a spiffy new Capitol Quarter web site.

A web site has been launched for the 260-unit residential building at 1st and L, which I've been referring to as 1100 First Street but which has been dubbed Onyx on First. Not much in the way of actual information there, but there is a registration form to fill out. (And I hope people who aren't in-the-know about Near Southeast aren't baffled by the "Ballpark Metro" references, since there's no station with that name, of course.) This is the project being developed jointly by Faison and the Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund (Magic Johnson being the "Johnson" part of that).

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).

Today there was a media tour of the ballpark construction site hosted by the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission and Clark/Hunt/Smoot, and they were nice enough to invite me. I'll have photos and details of what was said later this evening, but in the meantime here's the first JDLand Near Southeast multimedia offering, four minutes of video from within the construction site. It's not earthshatteringly exciting, but it is from down within the bowl of the stadium instead of from the usual vantage points along the perimeter. UPDATE: I've now posted my photos from today's tour, and also a bit of audio with the opening remarks from the DCSEC and construction folks. UPDATE II: And now the stories from news outlets on the tour: here's NBC4's brief. And MLB.com's (with lots of good details). And the Post's, which sneaks in a bunch of parking garage-related items into the story. UPDATE III: And the WashTimes story, and Marc Fisher's Post column talking about the garages (and how Mayor Baseball has already "checked out").