In order to start construction ASAP on both the expansion of the Navy Yard Metro entrance at Half and M and mixed-use offerings along Half Street, Monument Realty and WMATA are asking the DC Zoning Commission for an emergency text amendment to the Capitol Gateway Overlay to allow a temporary parking lot for WMATA employees to be built, replacing the one currently atop the Navy Yard station. This new lot would be on South Capitol Street between M and N, on the lot just south of the Public Storage building and just north of the Amoco station (lot 0700 0046 for those of you with parcel maps), and would be accessed from Van Street. The text amendment would restrict the parking lot's life to three years--by that point, Monument's construction along Half Street should completed and WMATA employees would then be able to park in those underground lots. This will come before the Zoning Commission for setdown on Nov. 13; because it is being requested on an emergency basis, the Office of Planning is recommending that the text amendment take effect immediately upon setdown, and is requesting that it be set down for a hearing at the earliest possible date. Good to see that Monument and WMATA are moving fast. UPDATE, 11/16: This text amendment was approved on an emergency basis, which means that it goes into effect immediately and for 120 days, but Monument still has to go to the ZC during that time for a hearing to get permanent approval of the amendment plus approval of the parking lot itself because it lies in a CG Overlay mandatory review area. (See the above entry for more on THAT!)

From Tuesday's Post: "The D.C. Council appears poised today to approve a scaled-back parking plan for the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium that calls for building two free-standing garages just north of the ballpark, near South Capitol Street and the Navy Yard in Southeast. [...] The new plan would build garages without reinforcement at a cost of $36 million, which could be paid with existing funds and remain within the cost cap, city officials said. Essentially, the plan is what the Lerner group has pushed for since taking over the team in the summer. [...] Fenty said the Lerner group has promised to work with the city to potentially tear down the garages in future seasons if a solid mixed-use development plan is proposed."

WDG Architecture updated its web site recently to include a rendering of 1015 Half Street, the 440,000-sq-ft office building by Potomac Investment Properties slated for the Nation site at Half and L. (I'd give a link directly to their page on 1015 Half, but like so many architecture firms, their site is so overly Flash'ed that there's no way to get you there.) They also had a rendering for 1325 South Capitol Street, the 244-unit residential project across from the stadium by Camden Development. (As expected, I'm wavering in my resolve to stop my coverage at the South Capitol Street median, and will now track anything that fronts South Capitol, even if the address is in Southwest.) These renderings--along with the one I found last week for 1000 South Capitol (the proposed 320,000-sq-ft office building by Lerner Enterprises on the same block as Nation)--spurred me to do some freshening of both my North of M and South Capitol Street pages, adding a lot of new photos and views.

Lookee here at what's popped up on the agenda for tomorrow's City Council session, a reading and vote on "Ballpark Parking Completion Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2006" and "Ballpark Parking Completion Emergency Amendment Act of 2006." (No sign of either of them in the online system, though.) I don't know what either of them contain, so we'll just have to wait for news to trickle out. The fun never stops. UPDATE: Speaking of the parking, WTOP is reporting that Herb Miller is suing the city, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission and the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, saying that his agreement with the city and Mayor Williams to build the Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness has not been honored. Says Miller: "D.C. will realize it has lost a remarkable opportunity to renew a neighborhood and provide hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefit to the city. It is a major loss that didn't have to happen." (Says JD: Just because this plan fell through doesn't mean there will never be development on those two blocks, not to mention that there's already plenty of other development on the blocks just north of the stadium.) UPDATE II: Here's the Washington Business Journal story on Miller's lawsuit.

Last month the WMATA board of directors approved a plan to have Monument Realty oversee the $20 million expansion of the Navy Yard Metro station at Half and M, as part of Monument's construction of an office building on that site. The minutes from the WMATA Planning and Development Committee are now posted, and there was some discussion about how WMATA can ensure that the April 2008 (i.e., Opening Day at the new ballpark) deadline for completion can be met: "Mr. Tangherlini responded that WMATA has included some penalties that involve the contractor providing transportation bridge service to the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station if the scheduled completion is not met. In addition there are severe financial and operational penalties for the developer if the station is not complete by April 2, 2008."

Thankfully I looked at the weather forecast before planning my weekend, and scheduled a photo excursion for Saturday, not Sunday. Lots of new pictures in the Stadium Construction Gallery, now also reorganized so that as you scroll down you're basically walking clockwise around the stadium site from it's construction starting point at 1st and N Place all the way down Potomac, up South Capitol, and over on Half back to 1st. And I also added a new photo or two (and updated the spiffy animated slide shows) for 20 M and Capper Seniors #2. Let the icon be your guide to the additions, as always. UPDATE: Oh yeah, duh, there's also the Capper demolition along the south side of L Street between 3rd and 4th, I added a couple of shots of that as well to my Capitol Quarter page, I'll update when the last of the blue-roofed apartment buildings comes down, probably within the next week.

PSA 105 is the DC MPD Police Service Area that covers the western half of Near Southeast (from 6th Street to South Capitol)--their next meeting is Saturday, Nov. 18 at 10 am at the 1D1 substation at Marion Park (5th and E SE), and the meeting announcement mentions "concerns related to the stadium construction" as one of the items to be addressed. Join the PSA 105 Yahoo Group if you want to be electronically involved...

The shareholders at Capitol Hill Tower invited me over last night to bore them with descriptions of arcane zoning regulations and pending parking garages, and their CHT Shareholder Community Blog includes a nice roundup of some of the Near Southeast development plans people had questions about, edited into handy bullet-point fashion for those of you just too darn lazy to bother committing to memory thousands of blog entries and hundreds of pages of photos and content. :-)

The two- and three-story brick buildings on the southeast corner of 3rd and L, and the one old townhouse on 4th between L and M, have been demolished within the past few days. These are on the northern part of Square 800, which is home to the 300 M Street office building and also the last tall Capper/Carrollsburg buildings. This land will be the southwestern edge of the Capitol Quarter townhome development. Hopefully this means that the long-vacant Capper buildings on that block will soon be demolished, but I don't know anything for sure. I also haven't heard any timeline for the demolition of the two-story Capper buildings on 2nd between I and L--mixed-income apartment buildings will eventually be built on those blocks, but there's no start date that I've heard for those projects. I will post demolition pictures soon--I've been quite remiss in my picture taking duties lately, but guilt is reaching crisis levels, and I promise to go on a photo excursion this weekend.

Lerner Enterprises within the past few days launched a very nice (and very much needed) redesign of their web site. The 20 M Street page (which isn't really the official project web site, that's 20MStreetSE.com) says that the building will be available in Spring 2007 (an earlier date than the Fall 2007 originally given), and gives much detail about the project's "green" features. It also lists Cushman & Wakefield as the commercial leasing agents, which I believe is a new development. There's also a page for 1000 South Capitol Street, a proposed 320,000-sq-ft office building on South Capitol between K and L (the parking lot next to Nation). No start date, but there's a rendering, the first I've seen for this project (and you know how excited I get when I unearth renderings). 1000 South Cap has been on the boards for years, but other than a request for an alley closing at an ANC6D meeting earlier this year (which was referred to the development committee), there's been no evidence of movement. See my own 20 M and North of M pages for photos, etc.

Today was the hearing on the application by "The Wine Cellar and Spirits" for a Class A (beer, wine, and liquor) license to open what the owners call a "tastefully designed wine and spirits" store in the Little Red Building at 156 L Street (next to the Courtyard by Marriott). ANC 6D has been officially designated as a protestant in opposition to the application, and presumably the owner will be in contact with the ANC to resolve any issues (most likely revolving around the sales of singles). There will be a status hearing on the application on Jan. 17, 2007, at 10 am.

It's now almost a cliche for oh-so-civic-minded bloggers to post "Vote!" messages on Election Day, but far be it from me to buck the trend. So get out there and vote in today's DC General Election, most especially the Ward 6 city council race between Tommy Wells (D), Will Cobb (I), and Tony Williams (R). UPDATE: Results are in, and congratulations to Tommy Wells on his Ward 6 victory. And Robert Siegel has been reelected as ANC 6D07 commissioner. UPDATE II: Here's a good Voice of the Hill piece on the Ward 6 and ANC elections.

Today is the "on or about day" that the flashing signs on South Capitol Street said would mark the beginning of work on the South Capitol Street Bridge--however, the start has been delayed while DDOT makes changes to its plans. Will alert you to anything I hear.

The Post editorial page weighs in again on the council standoff on the baseball stadium parking garages, laying out specifically the arguments being brought to table by CEO Gandhi and by council member David Catania about the city's liability should there not be 1,225 parking spaces on the stadium site by Opening Day 2008.

Today's Post has a piece on the "spirited" Ward 6 council race between Tommy Wells, Will Cobb and "I'm Not Mayor" Tony Williams. One of these three men will be representing Near Southeast on the city council, so if you're a resident, get familiar with them (the article has links to the info on each candidate from the Post's Voters Guide, and you can also visit the Wells, Cobb, and Williams web sites) and then VOTE.

Forest City Washington has issued a press release finally giving us confirmation that "The Yards" is the new name for the Southeast Federal Center. (The press release is dated Oct. 24, but just appeared on their web site in the past day or so, and is nowhere to be found in Nexis.) The release says that construction will begin in early 2007 on infrastructure improvements; and that Forest City has "several buildings currently under design, including three of the historic buildings which will involve residential and retail uses." There are more than 30 buildings planned overall totalling 5.5 million square feet of development on the 44-acre site made of up "including approximately 2,800 residential units (both rental and for sale), 1.8 million SF of office space, up to 400,000 SF of retail/dining space a public park, riverfront esplanade and trail that will connect with the Navy Yard's riverfront walk to the east and a similar feature to the west of the site that will connect with the Ballpark District development." The press release also explains how they came up with "The Yards" and its logo. A bit more interesting is this tidbit, that "Master Lease Agreement [between Forest City and the GSA] is expected to be signed in a few weeks and other supporting documents that will enable the start of construction are in final stages of negotiation." They also freshened up the project page on the FCWashington site, which says the first phase of buildings are expected to open in 2009.

The schedule of public programs at the US Navy Museum in November has been released, and I've added them to my Events Calendar. Note that they've scheduled a second Candlelight Tour of the Navy Yard (the first one is tonight) on Nov. 11.

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."

If you are a resident of Capitol Hill Tower, you're invited to their next Shareholder Community Meet and Greet, on Nov. 9 (note changed date) from 6:30 - 9:00 pm, where the special guest of honor will be, um, me. Yes, I've agreed to unshackle myself from my computer and exit my dungeon temporarily to come chat with CHT residents about the goings-on in Near Southeast. So come on by and spend some time getting to know your neighbors, I'll be the one standing in the corner shaking uncontrollably from all the unfamiliar contact with actual live humans.