Today's print edition of the Washington Business Journal reports that HOK has been hired to design the new four-building 825,000-sq-ft office and retail project by DRI Development on Square 696, the block bounded by First, Half, I, and K. (Well, actually WBJ says it's Nationals ballpark architect HOK Sport that's been hired, but I might think that it's not the sports division of HOK that will be designing this office/retail development, unless there's going to be a soccer stadium on the roof.) DRI now has an information page on Square 696 (also known as "99 I Street"), which says that the project will be developed in four phases, with expected start of the first phase in 2008 and delivery in late 2009; the entire project would be completed in 2012. My Square 696 has some photos if you want to see the block's current state; and it should be noted that this is the block from which AnA Towing decamped last week.

Also in today's print Washington Business Journal, a report that the Nationals have selected Centerplate to run the new ballpark's concessions and "premium food service," although no one with the Nationals or Centerplate would confirm. The supervisor of the Nationals operation is rumored to be the current general manager of Centerplate's operations at Denver's Invesco Field.

As I've been trying to take some tiny bit of a breather during this late-August lull, I haven't checked the Stadium Web Cam for a few days (horror!), which means I'm late in reporting that there's now a fabulous Time Lapse button you can click to watch the stadium rise from either of the two camera angles available (now labeled "Press Box" and "Centerfield"). And the webcam display software itself has gotten a nice upgrade, too. If you haven't peeked in lately, you'll see that the west parking garage is pretty far along, and work is getting more visible on the east garage.

Post columnist Marc Fisher writes today about "Ensuring the Promise of DC's New Stadium", noting that "there is nothing automatic about sparking the economic development that stadium proponents cite as the justification for public investment in a ballpark." Fisher traveled to Cleveland, Detroit, and Cincinnati and sees little going on around the new stadiums in those cities, but also cites San Francisco, Denver, and Abe Pollin's Verizon Center at Gallery Place as locations where sports facilities have "added neighborhoods to cities." As for the new Nationals ballpark? "For Washington to do better, it must make certain that developers provide amenities to make the new neighborhood worth visiting and that team owners do their part to make going to a game an experience worth repeating." He also expands on his column in an entry at his Raw Fisher blog.

From a Washington Humane Society press release, word arrives that the National Capital Area Spay and Neuter Center currently under construction at 1001 L Street, SE, will be opening in September, and that a ribbon-cutting ceremony has been scheduled for Oct. 4 at 11 am. Quoting: "The new facility will address the desperate need for low-cost spay/neuter of domestic animals in our region with a goal of providing sterilization surgery on up to 75 animals every day, five days a week." The center will also be part of "CatNiPP, the Cat Neighborhood Partnership Program, by sterilizing stray and feral cats to humanely reduce the area's outdoor cat population through Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)," a program which aims to "safely trap feral cats, spay or neuter, vaccinate and 'eartip' them, and return the healthy cats to their outdoor homes." Shelters from around the region will transport animals to the facility.