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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: Onyx
See JDLand's Onyx Project Page
for Photos, History, and Details
In the Pipeline
25 M
Yards/Parcel I
Chiller Site Condos
Yards/Parcel A
1333 M St.
More Capper Apts.
Yards/DC Water site
New Marine Barracks
Nat'l Community Church
Factory 202/Yards
SC1100
Completed
Thompson Hotel ('20)
West Half ('19)
Novel South Capitol ('19)
Yards/Guild Apts. ('19)
Capper/The Harlow ('19)
New DC Water HQ ('19)
Yards/Bower Condos ('19)
Virginia Ave. Tunnel ('19)
99 M ('18)
Agora ('18)
1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
Insignia on M ('17)
F1rst/Residence Inn ('17)
One Hill South ('17)
Homewood Suites ('16)
ORE 82 ('16)
The Bixby ('16)
Dock 79 ('16)
Community Center ('16)
The Brig ('16)
Park Chelsea ('16)
Yards/Arris ('16)
Hampton Inn ('15)
Southeast Blvd. ('15)
11th St. Bridges ('15)
Parc Riverside ('14)
Twelve12/Yards ('14)
Lumber Shed ('13)
Boilermaker Shops ('13)
Camden South Cap. ('13)
Canal Park ('12)
Capitol Quarter ('12)
225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
Foundry Lofts ('12)
1015 Half Street ('10)
Yards Park ('10)
Velocity Condos ('09)
Teague Park ('09)
909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
100 M ('08)
Onyx ('08)
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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79 Blog Posts Since 2003
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Too Darn Many New Photos, Including N Street, At Last
It was time this weekend to catch up on photos for a bunch of locations, including the most aged batch of them all, the views of the ballpark's northern footprint along N Street, which haven't been updated since September, so you can now have your fill of photographs of imposing parking garages. The curbs and historic streetlamps are now in, and N Street has been paved from South Capitol to Half, and it looks like the paving east to First isn't far behind. So even though the half-shadow half-sunlight conditions weren't the best to work with, I took full updates of the First, Half, Cushing, and Van intersections along N, all of which you can see here.
One thing that really struck me today for the first time is just how wide First Street is becoming, as you can see in this batch of northward-looking photos. I also saw that all the businesses on the west side of First south of M have now vacated--as you can see above, it's odd to see those old about-to-be-demolished buildings with sparkly new sidewalks and streetlamps in front of them.
I also trudged around the road construction along First Street north of M as best I could to update photos of 100 M, Onyx, and 70/100 I, and also got a good new batch of 55 M photos as well as the always showy views from the freeway at South Capitol. And I finally got the last set of old Capper Seniors photos to show that the building is indeed gone. And heaven help me I even took a photo of the new sign advertising the Square 696 project, and also a few shots barely showing that work started this week on the first Capper parking lot at Third and I (because there's nothing more exciting than documenting the construction of a parking lot). There's just too much change, and I couldn't stop until it had all been documented! Aaaiiiieeeeee!!!!
For those of you brave enough to try, here's all the photos from the past two days on one page. (Thank heavens I've done a lot of work over the past year or so to automate the update process as much as possible.) Don't forget to click on the icons to see all photos of a location over the years....
 

Updated Photos, Albeit With Gray Skies
Before the snow-that-never-was arrived yesterday, I took a quick spin to get some updated photos. There was still a smidgen of sun when I visited the old Capper Seniors site, where only the southwest wing of the huge building remained standing when I was there (but even that could be gone by now). I also wandered along Tingey Street behind the DOT HQ for the first time in a long time to see what's going on with the work at The Yards--they're now preparing to build some temporary parking lots and are doing their infrastructure work before starting the rehabs next year of three existing buildings into residential and retail offerings. I also took some shots along M Street and at Onyx on First and 100 M to take advantage of the overcast skies in those spots, since the building shadows on winter days when the sun's out are almost impossible to work with. Finally, I got updated photos of 55 M Street, the northern portion of Monument's Half Street project, where the section along M Street is now three stories high and a fourth story is underway on the southern edge of the building.
Here's the entire batch of new photos on one page--don't forget to click the if you want to see all photos in the archive from a certain angle. And in case you missed these a few days back, I recently took new overhead photos of the North of M area (looking south and west and northwest), showing quite a change in the last 21 months.
 

New Batch of Overhead and St. Matthew's Photos
I visited my perch above New Jersey Avenue today and got updated photos looking to the south and west and northwest, which provide quite the overview of the changes in the past 21 months on the blocks I've wittily dubbed North of M (between M, South Capitol, the freeway, and New Jersey). The two links above show you just the oldest and the newest photos for each angle, or you can try these links to see all the photos I've taken of those angles, at about three-month intervals.
Of course, the arrivals of 100 M, Onyx, and 70/100 I are the biggest changes; you can also see that Velocity is building the garage levels and will be above ground by late winter, and that 909 New Jersey's crane is now in place, meaning that vertical construction there is not far off. But thanks to the 100 M/Onyx construction, peeks at the ballpark and Monument Half Street from this vantage point are now pretty well gone.
I also took a few ground-level photos of the New Jersey and L intersection to capture the change in the skyline above St. Matthew's, which is easier to see now that that big old tree has dropped its leaves. You can see just today's ground-level shots, or compare them with past photos.
If none of these billion links tickle your fancy, all ground-level and sky-high photos from today can be seen on a single page.
 

New Feature: What's the Deal With....? [Onyx on First]
With the late-season information lull now upon us, I thought it might be a good time to launch a new semi-regular feature: What's the Deal With....? I'm envisioning this as a chance to answer questions about things you see around the neighborhood or on this web site, since it's I know it's hard keeping up with the torrent of information that comes at you from JDLand. I do freely admit that I'm sometimes not so great at re-addressing the basics, since I'm so focused on digging out the latest news. And of course many of the folks who wander by are newcomers trying to get caught up with the backstory--or are veteran visitors who aren't necessarily keeping up with Near Southeast in quite such a *detailed* manner as Some People. (Why I'm only thinking of this now after almost five years of responding to questions like this mainly via e-mail, I don't know. I guess the desperation to have new content is a strong force!)
So, if you have a question that might be a good fit for WTDW...?, drop me a line, and we'll see what we come up with. I'll be looking for questions that have concrete answers, rather than requests for ruminations on the big picture. (And don't be like the college journalism student I recently heard from who sent me one dozen essay-level questions about Near Southeast, and requested that I return my answers by the end of the day.)
I'll start with an e-mail that arrived today from a reader asking about the status of Onyx on First, the 260-unit residential tower by Faison and Canyon-Johnson under construction on the southeast corner of First and L. Onyx was launched in late 2006 as a condo project and is scheduled to open in Fall 2008, but although there's a web site with general information, sales at the building have yet to get underway. (The trailers you see behind Normandie Liquors at First and M arrived back in the spring to house the Onyx sales office, but have sat unused for more than six months.) Rumors about Onyx's status have been floating around as the DC condo market softens, but so far no change to the original plans has been announced. When I hear something confirmed, I'll post it here as fast as my little fingers can type.
More posts: What's the Deal?, Onyx, Square 743N
 

New Photos, and a Moratorium on Ballpark Pictures
Thanksgiving weekend is a good time to take photos of the neighborhood, given that traffic is close to nonexistent. (Great weather helped, too.) The showy construction work has now slowed down at 70/100 I, Onyx on First, and 100 M, so after this update I'm now going to scale back the updates to those project pages (and their expanded photo archives). Demolition continues at old Capper Seniors, though not much happened to the building itself in the past week as work appeared to focus on clearing the ground of the debris from the initial work. And 55 M continues along, though it's hard right now to get a feel for the progress from ground level (beyond the festive steel beams along M Street), which is why having the webcam is so handy.
You can see all of the weekend's photos on this page, and of course feel free to click on the icons to see all photos of a certain location to watch the buildings go up (or down, in the case of Capper Seniors).
Then there's the ballpark.
[Long pause. Sigh.]
Taking photos of the stadium's exterior started to be constrained in late summer by the infrastructure work being done along First Street and Potomac Avenue; and by October access to N Street had pretty well been cut off too, again because of the infrastructure work. While I grumbled about the loss of access to those locations, I respect the perimeters of construction sites, and totally understand the need for security to keep people out of the ballpark, and so I stayed north of N. But yesterday, while standing on the northeast corner of First and N streets, on an open public sidewalk outside of the stadium footprint, I was approached by a security guard telling me repeatedly that I was "not allowed" to take photos of the ballpark. (At least I wasn't screamed at through a megaphone, as happened to a correspondent of mine at the same location recently.) This is, of course, ridiculous--there are no laws against taking photographs of anything while standing on public property, and it deserves its own separate rant about stupid attempts to clamp down on civil liberties in public spaces.
But the cumulative effect of the run-ins I've had over the past few months when I am absolutely positively 100% in no way trying to set foot inside the ballpark (my favorite being the time I was shadowed by a guard all the way down South Capitol from N to Potomac and back despite never coming any closer to the ballpark than South Capitol's median) have left me drained and uninterested in continuing the battle. At the same time, I'm dealing with the fallout from a recent memo sent out by the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission reminding ballpark contractors and subcontractors that they are not allowed to talk to "the media" without prior approval by the DCSEC, leaving workers who have been nice enough to answer such probing questions as "how many panels make up each row of the HD scoreboard?" feeling that they can no longer be helpful.
I imagine something could be worked out, though right now I'm worn out from all the drama and not quite ready to fight the fight. In the meantime, I'm not going to update any ballpark photos or post news of the stadium other than links to accounts in the ("real") media. (Of course, the vast majority of the exterior work of the ballpark is already completed, so this isn't exactly a breathtakingly brave stand!) Once the roads are reopened, and the ballpark is close to opening, I'll of course get back in gear, but until then I'm taking a breather.
 

Ridiculous Number of New Photos
It started innocently enough. On Sunday morning, when I woke up to find such a brilliant sunny day, I decided to go take a new batch of photos of the demolition at old Capper Seniors to replace the dreary ones from Saturday. Then I started moving away a few blocks, to catch more distant views of the building. Then I decided that there were a bunch of locations where 70/100 I and Onyx on First were changing the skyline that I hadn't captured. Then I realized that it had been a long time since I had taken a complete set of photos of the western side of South Capitol Street at O and P streets, to show the changes since the demolition of the viaduct and all the streetscape improvements. And then of course, while I was there, I had to take a set of shots of the ballpark's western facade. Then there were more shots needed of the changes along M Street thanks to 55 M and 100 M. By the time I was done, I had a ridiculous number of new images up on the site, which you can see all on one page; you can also see most of them paired with past shots by clicking on the "Photo Archive Before-and-Afters" links at the top of that page, like the "South Capitol Street Makeover", which shows the new photos from both sides of the street (along with some older angles I didn't update). After a while they all run together, I know. But they make for some spiffy before-and-afters!
 

New Photos (Everywhere but the Stadium)
As I took two ventures out over the weekend to take pictures (and cursed the skies for only seeming to be cloudy when I was hitting the shutter, so be prepared for rotten lighting), I came to realize that my desire to capture the changing skyline means that I pretty much have to take photos at every intersection between New Jersey, I, South Capitol, and N, because there's hardly any spot covered by those 10 blocks or so that isn't seeing a big change to its view.
The new player is 55 M Street, with the signature steel beams above the Metro station now visible from two blocks in any direction. And I had to capture the brick work on 70 I, and the continuing climb of 100 M, and the preparations for glass hanging on the sides of Onyx, which gave me way too many photos to post, so it's probably just as well that I have no ballpark photo updates for you. (But be patient, there might be some coming soon.) You can see all of this weekend's photos here, or check out the Expanded Project Archives if you want to see the new photos paired with their "befores."
A couple things to note: 1015 Half Street now has signs marking it as a construction zone, and apparently all that stands between it and the start of excavation is waiting for permits from DCRA. (Snicker.) And Tingey Street, behind DOT, closed last week, I imagine for infrastructure work and perhaps streetscape work as well.
Looking ahead, this coming week should see the start of demolition at old Capper Seniors; I'll be lurking there pretty regularly for the next few weeks, I imagine.
And by the way, a general hat tip to the various folks who have said "hey" when coming upon me taking photos over these past weeks and months. Always nice to talk to people who read the site, and I also always appreciate everyone's kindness in not running over me when I'm standing in the middle of the street.
 

More New Photos Than Should Be Allowed by Law
For months now, I've been dreading this part of 2007, when so many projects would be underway--and it turns out I was right to be worried. Goodness gracious, tons and tons of photos were needed to keep to my perfectionist mandate, but at last I've gotten them up on the site, even though it's pretty much taken a week to get every shot I wanted. For your perusing pleasure:
*The Stadium Exterior Construction Gallery is more updated than it's been in nearly three months, though N Street was unavailable to me this weekend thanks to lots of digging going on. The photos on that page, as well as on the expanded galleries of views along Potomac Avenue, South Capitol, and from the ballpark's viewing platform at First and Potomac show not only the progress on the stadium but also on the streetscape improvements. Sidewalks, curbs, and streetlamps continue to be installed--and the stoplights along South Capitol are gearing up as well (it looks like the P Street light that's now flashing yellow is going to get turned on pretty soon).
* 70 I Street and Onyx are just about topped out, while their siblings 100 I and 100 M aren't far behind. In fact, progress at 70 I is outpacing me so much that within the five days since I took photos of its western side, the bricking of that wall has begun, and is already reaching the second floor in some spots. There's some nice long-distance shots of these projects, from the freeway and the ballpark, highlighting how much the skyline has changed in just a few short weeks.
* Velocity's three-story-deep hole is now getting a concrete floor, which means vertical construction is starting before long. (The crane arrived within the past few days.) And Monument's 55 M Street office building (where the Navy Yard Metro west entrance is being expanded) is poking up above street level, with the first concrete pillars poured along M Street. And it's been hard to get any photos of the work at The Yards, but I finally snagged a few from up on high.
* Plus there's the shots from the top of 20 M Street this morning, including a few panoramic views across Southwest.
If you don't want to plow through all those links above, you can see all the new photos on one page, though it's just a touch overwhelming. (Yes, even I know it's overwhelming.) But the project links above (and their expanded archives) are really worth it, because the scope of the changes is now so amazing. So click on a or two to watch the progression.
And now I will rest myself and my camera for a while. Hope you enjoy the photos.
 

Market Deli and Neighbors On the Market for $11 Million
Word has arrived that the Market Deli at First and L, the cab company at New Jersey and L, and the small empty lot between them have gone on the market as a joint sale, with an asking price of $11 million for the 9,000-plus square feet of land. It's one of the last spots in Near Southeast west of Eighth Street where the land is still owned by individuals and not developers, and anyone watching the corner shouldn't be surprised that this is finally happening--and given that behemoth Akridge owns most of the rest of that block's land along First Street, maybe they might be watching this offering with interest. The deal is being spearheaded by the Resnick family, which over the past few years has sold family land on both sides of the 1100 block of New Jersey, and on L Street where Onyx is now going up. (And their father once operated a 5&10 where the Courtyard by Marriott now stands.) In the meantime, they're talking with restaurants about perhaps renting some of the existing space to sell "quick food" for ballpark goers.
 

New Batch of Photos, Pt. 1 - Scoreboard Stars and More
The breadth of construction around Near Southeast is now so vast that I'm forced to break my photo sojourns up into multiple sessions. Today's batch includes a few from the eastern side of the stadium, which are somewhat hard to come by these days--make sure to see the second photo down on the Stadium Exterior Construction Gallery, which shows the red stars that were added to the scoreboard in the past few days as part of the installation of the clock. (The "Nationals" lettering is cool to see as well, even if it's backwards.) The rest of the new stadium photos are more toward the bottom of the gallery (look for the icon) and on the First Street and N Street expanded galleries, but I'm planning to take a complete batch of photos of the western side of the ballpark on Sunday.
There's also the usual updates to the project pages for residential projects 70/100 I and Onyx on First and the 100 M Street office building, as well as plenty of other vantage points that can be seen on the expanded galleries or on the see-'em-all-on-one-page output. Try not to be blinded by the incredibly blue sky when looking at these shots, and cross your fingers I get that weather again on Sunday.
I've also got one not-so-good comparison showing the slow progress on the demolition of the GPO building at The Yards, though fences and construction vehicles are making it very hard to get good shots of what's going on there.
I did also notice that the DC Foreign Car garage on K west of Half is definitely now abandoned, sometime within the past month or so. No "we've moved" sign is up anywhere, and so it's possible that it's been a number of weeks since they closed, but now all the windows and doors are busted, so it was obvious even to my sometimes-distracted brain. Opus East has said they're planning to start construction on 1015 Half Street in October, which would mean this garage should be gone before much longer.
Tune in tomorrow for the next batch.

 
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