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225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
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Yards Park ('10)
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909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
100 M ('08)
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70/100 I ('08)
Nationals Park ('08)
Seniors Bldg Demo ('07)
400 M ('07)
Douglass Bridge Fix ('07)
US DOT HQ ('07)
20 M ('07)
Capper Seniors 1 ('06)
Capitol Hill Tower ('06)
Courtyard/Marriott ('06)
Marine Barracks ('04)
 
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Concerns About Canal Park and Parking - Update
While I've been following for weeks the zoning procedures around the plans for temporary surface parking lots in the blocks north of M Street, I'm hearing today for the first time that there may be some pressure behind the scenes to delay construction of Canal Park, so that its three blocks of space could be used for temporary surface parking to help fulfill the necessary spaces for Nationals ballgames.
It is indeed true that those three blocks are covered under Zoning Case 07-08, which was approved back in May, but because of some odd tax parcel configurations (where the parcels 767, 768, and 769 actually stretch across the eastern half of 2nd Street over to 3rd and so also include the three blocks where Capper buildings were demolished earlier this year), I always just assumed that those references in the zoning requests were merely for the Capper portions of the parcels and not the Canal Park portions. Plus, plans seemed to be moving forward for Canal Park to begin construction in time for a Spring 2008 opening, so it didn't appear to be an issue (much the way that Case 07-08 asked for the ability to build temporary lots on the Pepco site in Buzzards Point even though Pepco says they wouldn't be vacating those blocks anytime soon).
However, with apparently some salivating going on in some quarters over those additional lots (where school buses currently reside), some people fear that the near-term building of Canal Park could be in jeopardy. There is a meeting on July 12 of the National Capital Planning Commission, where approval of Case 07-08 is on the agenda; if this issue of parking lots/no parking lots on the Canal Park site is something that concerns you one way or the other, you may wish follow the NCPC guidelines for participation in the meeting. And getting in touch with the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation (which is in charge of the park's development) and/or Tommy Wells's office may also be an approach you want to take.
UPDATE, 7/6: I'm now hearing whispers that the salivating over Canal Park might not actually be completely stadium-related, but also a part of the continuing need for the Metropolitan Police Department to find about 150 extra spaces to have enough parking for their proposed move into 225 Virginia Avenue....

 

Douglass Bridge Closure Day Arrives
Let's get this party started: a few hours ago the Douglass Bridge closed for its extreme makeover, so the media stories will transition from yesterday's "it's closing" pieces to today's "it's closed" pieces, to be followed no doubt by the "how it went" stories later today and tomorrow. First out of the blocks is the Post's "Dead End at the Anacostia", which gives the basics of the project, details the various alternate routes, and has a graphic of the detours. WTOP has a piece as well, as do the Examiner and the Washington Times. And no doubt the local television news networks will have lots of updates from the bridge site throughout their morning and afternoon broadcasts (I'll wait to link to them until later today).
You might want to keep an eye on today's traffic reports, which here at the crack of dawn are already indicating a fun morning on the 11th Street Bridges thanks an accident that has two of the northbound lanes closed. (Alas, there are no traffic cameras showing the 11th Street area.)
If you want to try to get a glimpse of the demolition without venturing down to the site, you can look at this South Capitol-at-M traffic camera, which this morning is pointed southward and has a grainy view of the viaduct with what appears to be some construction action underway on the southbound side of the street (UPDATE: It's now pointing to the east; perhaps it'll just keep switching throughout the day). There's also the far right side of the Stadium Construction Webcam Camera #2 for the portion of the viaduct around P Street.
I'll no doubt be updating throughout the day (probably with pictures at some point as well), so keep checking back.

 

Rowing on the Anacostia
Friday's Weekend section of the Post has a nice feature about rowing on the Anacostia River. It mentions of the Capitol Rowing Club and the Anacostia Community Boathouse Association, which are located between the two spans of the 11th Street Bridge. You can see a few photos of the boathouses and what the river looks like in that spot on my East M Street/Anacostia Rowing Center page.
More posts: Boathouse Row
 

Douglass Bridge Closure Mere Hours Away - Updated With More Story Links
Enjoy your access to the South Capitol Street/Douglass Bridge today, because that's it until August. As I've mentioned ad infinitum here, it's closing tonight (12:01 am Friday July 6) so that the portion of the viaduct north of Potomac Avenue can be demolished and the rest of the northern approach lowered so that the bridge comes to ground level at Potomac Avenue. Here's my page with the graphics, links and photos explaining it all. Dr. Gridlock addresses it today in his Get There blog, and there are short blurbs out today by WJLA and Fox 5. While the plans are for the bridge to be closed through the end of August, the contractor can receive up to $1 million in incentives by finishing sooner.
And we'll see what happens with tomorrow's rush hour; officials are warning commuters to add 30 minutes to their normal expected commute time while the bridge is closed. Feel free to send me your Day 1 traffic experience.
UPDATE: More stories in advance of the closure, from WTOP (which says that the contractors will be working 20-hour days), NBC 4, WUSA, and another reminder from DDOT.
 

Links for Today's Ballpark and Beyond Column
If you wandered over here from today's Ballpark and Beyond column in the Post's District Extra, here are a few links you might want to follow for additional background: Capitol Hill Tower is the home of the dry cleaners that had the bad first day of business; my Capitol Quarter page has lots of photos and details on the mixed-income townhouse development replacing Capper/Carrollsburg that has generated so much camping activity; I've got plenty of recent exterior and interior photos of the Nationals ballpark and renderings of what it's supposed to look like when it finishes next spring; my 1111 New Jersey Ave. page has details on the Donohoe office building project that will now be expanded after their purchase of the Navy Yard Metro station east entrance; and my Upcoming Events Calendar has links for the pile of meetings and hearings scheduled for next week.

 

Stadium Topping Out Stories
I've already written almost exactly the same story, but for people who can't bear to miss anything, there's a brief Associated Press piece out this morning mentioning that the ballpark's structural steel and concrete work is almost complete, and that the "Topping Out" party has been scheduled for July 11. (This WTOP rewrite of the piece jumps the gun a little--the work isn't done just yet; but there is a fun picture of a worker installing the seats in the right field upper deck.) And, as mentioned before, they need to get the construction equipment out of the infield so that digging for the drainage system can begin; the turf will be put down in October. (UPDATE: In fact, the AP piece sounds a lot like my DC Extra blurb today on the topping out.) And just to clarify, the steel and concrete work probably won't be 100% finished on the day of the party, but will likely be finished by the end of July.

More posts: Nationals Park
 

South Cap and L SW Parcel Sells for $5.5 Million
We know that I only grudgingly look at what's happening on the west side of South Capitol Street given how full my hands are with all points eastward, but I did manage to notice within the past few weeks that the KFC/Taco Bell on the southwest corner of South Capitol and L (barely visible here and from M Street) has been boarded up. And I now see in the DC property sales database that on June 1 the property was purchased for $5.5 million by "URA Venture LLC." Quick searches don't yield me anything concrete on this company name, so I guess we'll have to wait and see who it is and what they're up to. If you know, feel free to share.
UPDATE, 5 minutes later: The contact address for URA in the sales database appears to match with this entry in the city's LSDBE database for Urban Realty Advisors LLC, which has now led me to their web site. (And I was unaware that Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart had entered the DC real estate market!) Still no words on the plans for the KFC site, though. And e-mails to their contact address bounce.
More posts: South Capitol St.
 

All-Star Hood?
From today's Washington Times: "The Washington Nationals have contacted commissioner Bud Selig to make their pitch to play host to an All-Star Game in their Anacostia Waterfront ballpark, which is scheduled to open in 2008. [...] 'My guess is it would be sometime between 2010 and 2013, whenever they decide to give us one and based on other requests from other teams,' [Nationals owner Mark] Lerner said."
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Piles of New Photos (Stadium and More)
I've been posting over the past couple days all sorts of new photos: first off, there's the usual update to the exterior views in the Stadium Construction Gallery's main page and the more detailed north-south-east-west pages. The big change is the arrival of the scoreboard steel on the First Street side, which has also helped to give the stadium its more rounded feel when looking at it from the north. And, if you know what you're looking for, you can see the first real shots of progress on the west parking garage at Half and N, although it's still kind of hidden by trees and construction equipment. There's also my final shots from up on the South Capitol Street viaduct north of Potomac Ave. (waaaah!).
You can also see some new shots from inside the stadium, where you can get a better view of the scoreboard's progress and also of the seats being installed in right field. And the outfield restaurant is moving along as well.
I got a big surprise when I rounded First Street onto Potomac Avenue Saturday morning--all of the trees and growth on the south side of Potomac were removed this week, and the fence marking Florida Rock's property was moved back, in preparation for the widening of Potomac Avenue. I posted a bunch of new pictures showing the change on my Florida Rock page, but I'm not sure the photos do it justice. And of course it's about to change even more late this week when the Douglass Bridge Extreme Makeover starts.
And finally there's a lot of new shots from various locations north of M that I took on Thursday, catching things like a new "Capitol Yards" sign at 909 New Jersey, progress on the Velocity Condos sales center, and even the new sidewalks on the northern portion of New Jersey Avenue if you have x-ray vision. It's hard to see in the photos, but the vertical construction at both Onyx on First and 70 I Street is now right at street level, so in the coming weeks expect those buildings to burst on the scene. You can see all these non-stadium updated photos compiled here if you don't want to poke around on the project pages.
That ought to keep everyone busy during a slow vacation-tinged week....
 

Next Capitol Quarter Release on Sunday - Change in Future Releases?
The current batch of campers at 4th and L now have the end in sight, as an e-mail went out this morning announcing that the July release of five market-rate townhouses at Capitol Quarter will happen July 1 (tomorrow) at 11 am. However, if you were thinking about heading down there with tent in hand in anticipation of the next release, this paragraph from the e-mail might be worth digesting: "This will be the last market rate home release until later this year. Once we have established the date and procedures of our next release of market rate homes, we will notify you with this information via email." Sounds like maybe they're changing their release routine? We will have to watch and see.
Also, the lowest base price on the market-rate houses is now just a smidge over $600k, so certainly the prices have responded to the interest!
More posts: Capper, Capitol Quarter
 

Douglass Bridge Closure Countdown Begins
With less than a week to go now until early morning July 6, when the two-month closure of the Douglass Bridge to shorten and lower the bridge's northern portion begins, the media blitz is now getting underway. Here's the DDOT press release summarizing what's going to happen and what the impacts will be; it's a good link to e-mail around if you need to alert people to what's happening. The Post's Dr. Gridlock is mentioning the release and summarizing some of the other commuting impacts as well. One tidbit: they're telling people to expect morning delays of around 20 minutes, and afternoon rush delays of between 20 and 30 minutes.
My Douglass Bridge Fixes page has lots of links, drawings, and graphics explaining exactly what's going to be happening, and of course I will be there with camera in hand throughout the project to capture the changes. But while getting a new boulevard-like South Capitol Street is A Good Thing, I must take a minute to mourn what will be lost: three of my beloved perches where I've shot photos of the ballpark's progress over the past 15 months. (Though, it must be said, those spots would have lost their stadium view eventually anyway with the construction of the "knife-edge" Nationals administration building along South Capitol.)
 

Lots of New Yards Renderings
With many thanks to Forest City Washington, I've posted a bunch of renderings of the four projects that are on the boards at The Yards in its first phase of development. These came from the submission on the first phase that FC made in advance of its July 12 presentation in front of the National Capital Planning Commission, and while they have some nice drawings of the plans that I've written about in the past for renovating three of the historic buildings at the old Southeast Federal Center, the big news is the first hints of what's planned for "Parcel D", currently a parking lot on the east side of 4th Street south of M: it's to be a residential building the south end of the site and an office building on the north end that would have a grocery store on the ground floor at 4th and M. The drawings also show the additional floors to be added to the brown-and-white Building 160 and imposing red-brick Building 202, both of which have interior atrium/courtyards I never knew about. And there's a few cool renderings of the plans for transforming the very industrial Building 167 that sits right behind the new DOT HQ into retail space. (Plans for the five-acre waterfront park and other areas in the Yards were not part of this submission.)
I didn't get the entire submission, so I'm not knee-deep in details, but everyone should definitely look at these drawings to see what's coming at The Yards. We should be seeing the beginnings of the streetscape improvements Any Minute Now (which include landscaping that barren area on the west side of New Jersey Ave. south of M), but the completion of the Building 167 retail and Building 160 residential won't happen before 2009, and the Parcel D/grocery store project *could* finish in 2010. So don't pack your bags or write your shopping list just yet.
 

Dry Cleaners Now Open in Capitol Hill Tower - And Promptly Robbed
I haven't seen it with my own eyes yet, but reader Scott reports that Congressional Cleaners has now opened on the ground floor of Capitol Hill Tower, on New Jersey north of L. No excuses for dirty clothes anymore!
UPDATE: .... And alas the new kids on the block promptly got robbed at gunpoint this afternoon. No one was hurt, thank goodness. But now everyone in the neighborhood really needs to stop by and give them some business. And let this be a lesson: never outsource the Welcome Wagon to the Bureau of Prisons.
 

WMATA Board Approves Navy Yard East Entrance Sale
Without any discussion, the Metro board has voted unanimously to select NJA Associates (a subsidiary of Donohoe) to develop the Navy Yard subway station's east entrance at New Jersey and M; there will now be negotiations for the sale itself. You can read my Monday entry for more background on the plan, or visit my 1111 New Jersey Ave. page for information on Donohoe's planned office building right next to the station, which the company apparently plans to expand onto this additional land. You can also look at the WMATA documents on the plan, although they aren't ridiculously heavy on detail. Next steps? Waiting for word of the actual sale, and keeping an eye out for Donohoe's revised design, which will now have to go through a Capitol Gateway Overlay zoning review since the expanded lot would front on M Street.
 

Ballpark and Beyond: This Week's Links
This week's Ballpark and Beyond column in the Post is on Tuesday's groundbreaking at Capper / Carrollsburg, and Monument's purchase of the Sunoco site. If you're visiting here for more information, you can check out my Capper / Carrollsburg overview page for more details and links on the project's redevelopment as well as photos from the groundbreaking, and my Capitol Quarter page has lots and lots (and lots!) of photos showing the area before, during, and after demolition. You can see what Monument Realty is up to at Half and M on my Monument Half Street page.
 

Project Maps Updated
With all the recent news about various projects around Near Southeast (Monument's Sunoco site purchase, Navy Yard Metro east entrance sale, 250 M's delayed start, JPI's plans for 23 I, etc.), I took the time to update my various Detailed Development Maps for the Stadium Corridor, M Street, and New Jersey Avenue. The information on these maps is not any different from what you'll find on the homepage in my Project Directory, but I know some people are more graphically oriented, or maybe would rather look at the proposed projects based on location rather than type. It's just a way to repackage the ridiculous amount of information I have on the site in different ways for different tastes. You can always get to these maps by clicking on the links at the bottom right of my main homepage map or toward the bottom of the right-margin on any of my interior pages.
More posts:
 

Ballpark Topping Out Party Scheduled (Updated)
In what has to be considered a good sign for the progress of the Nationals ballpark, a "Topping Out" celebration has been scheduled for July 11, signaling the completion of the exterior structural steel and the concrete work (or at least signaling that those milestones are reallyreallyreally close). These parts of the construction have to be completed so that the infield can be cleared of machinery and whatnot to allow for the start of digging to build the drainage system. The turf is scheduled to be planted in October.
Speaking of structural steel, eagle-eyed webcam viewers have already noticed that the installation of the steel started last week and is already pretty far along for the scoreboard in right-center field, which will be the largest in Major League Baseball (for now, anyway). In addition, the installation of the precast concrete facade has made its way around to South Capitol Street. The western parking garage is also taking shape. (Don't everybody cheer at once.) And I also hear that the first seats were delivered on June 22nd. Watch for the stands to start turning blue!
UPDATE: Speaking of the stadium, here's a Fox5 report from today about the "Washington Area Women in Trades" program that is helping get jobs in the construction industry for women who've had some rough times, and profiles two who are now working at the ballpark site.
UPDATE, 6/27: That didn't take long. Take a look at the webcam and you can see that the seats started being installed today, in the right-field upper deck at the far left in the photos. (You'll need to zoom in a bit, and peer through the raindrops on the camera lens, or go back to the 1:58 pm photo for a pre-downpour view.)
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Douglass Bridge Closure Date Still July 6 (Technically)
Thanks to reader Barbara for the heads up that an electronic sign has appeared on South Capitol Street this morning saying that the Douglass Bridge is going to close at noon on July 5; at the briefing on the bridge's two-month closure and "Extreme Makeover" a few weeks ago, July 6 was announced as the date the bridge would close. I'm trying to find out if there has indeed been a change, and will update this post when I have details.
UPDATE: The bridge is closing at 12 midnight (not 12 noon), but at the end of the day July 5; in other words, the very start of July 6. Take your pick--think of it as closing at 11:59 pm on the 5th, or 12:01 am July 6.
 

Miles Glass Tire Shop Closed
Thanks go to eagle-eyed correspondent Mark for passing along the news this weekend that Mac's Tire Service shop in the old Miles Glass building at 8th and Virginia appears to have closed. I have no details to pass along, as to whether the property's been sold or if the shop just shut down on its own. Anyone with details is of course encouraged to drop me a line. It's quite a cool building, in a good location on 8th Street--it would certainly seem to have possibilities, but they'd better not involve demolishing it or getting rid of that festive sign!
UPDATE: I've been alerted that Mac's has not closed permanently, but has moved to 423 Florida Ave. NE.
More posts: 8th Street, square 906
 

Capper Groundbreaking
For those of you who didn't feel like venturing out into the sauna (hello, DC summer!), I've posted photos from today's ceremonial groundbreaking at Capper/Carrollsburg. The tent was air-conditioned, at least, and there was a bit of a revival feel as DCHA executive director Michael Kelly, Ward 6 council member Tommy Wells, and other officials sang the praises of the federal/city/private partnership that has leveraged a $35 million HUD HOPE VI grant into a nearly $500 million revitalization project. Many former Capper residents were there, clearly excited about what they will be returning to; one woman, whose mother moved into the Cappers when it opened in 1956, spoke of being one of the 55 Capper households in the Community Support Services Homeownership Education and Counseling Program, which will help her to buy a home in the community where she's spent almost her entire life.
As for the timeline, infrastructure work at the site is now getting underway, to be followed this fall by "land development", which for us non-construction types is better known as Moving Dirt Around; the start of the houses themselves (i.e., "vertical construction") is scheduled for early 2008.
And the campers waiting for the next release of market-rate homes? They got to take the morning off, but will be back. You can watch the story Channel 9 did yesterday if you need your camping fix.

More posts: Capper, Capitol Quarter
 
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