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Thompson Hotel ('20)
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99 M ('18)
Agora ('18)
1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
Insignia on M ('17)
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One Hill South ('17)
Homewood Suites ('16)
ORE 82 ('16)
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Southeast Blvd. ('15)
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Camden South Cap. ('13)
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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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Madison Marquette, the new owners of the Blue Castle at 770 M Street, are dipping their toes into social networking by creating a Facebook page where people can comment on ideas and plans for the old trolley barn's redevelopment. Also, here's the press release from last week on the acquisition. Madison Marquette is also one of the finalists in the Poplar Point redevelopment sweepstakes.
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The buildings along Potomac Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets--the white corner building that houses Quizno's (810 Potomac) and the boarded-up brown brick apartment building next door at Ninth and Potomac--are now up for sale (asking price not listed). The current owners, ICP Partners, purchased the properties in February 2006 for $9 million; they're currently assessed at around $6.5 million. These owners are part of the group that has been trying to develop 801 Virginia Avenue since 2005--and I imagine it's a sign of what might be happening with that project that the splashy AdmiralCondo.com web site that they launched back in August is now gone. Perhaps someone with better access to commercial property listings than I have might want to peek and see if the 801 Virginia lot (0929 0007) is up for sale as well?
(I should also note that the Dogma lot on the *other* end of the block from the Admiral, at 821 Virginia, is apparently for sale, for $4 million. Dogma's lease runs through 2014.)
UPDATE: Thanks to reader A. for letting me know that the 801 Virginia lot is indeed listed for sale, for $4.5 million.
 

Well, at least the "on-time" portion of the mantra still holds. From the Examiner: "The costs of acquiring land needed to build the Washington Nationals ballpark have exceeded original estimates by $50 million, busting the publicly financed stadium's $631 million budget with more increases yet to come, documents show. Thanks almost entirely to land acquisition, the tab for the stadium is now pegged at $674 million, an increase of $43.2 million over the original budget, according to a Jan. 16 report provided to the D.C. Council by the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission." Except that: "Land acquisition was not included in the stadium's $611 million price cap, meaning the sports commission can bridge the budget gap with excess revenues from the ballpark fund -- composed mainly of stadium sales taxes and a 1 percent tax on D.C. businesses. It also means that while the project is technically over budget, it has not breached the statutory cap."
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Tuesday's Post has a feature on the work the Nationals are doing to try to get the parking and transportation for the new ballpark figured out: "Team executives, D.C. police representatives, officials from the city planning and transportation departments and Metro, and D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission staff members meet regularly in the situation room, working out the details of moving 41,000 fans in and out of the ballpark -- from identifying parking lots to figuring out where traffic officers will be." Not really anything new in it, but brings together items of note mentioned recently various other media reports (and blog entries) of late.
But this is a good place to sneak in yet another reminder about the two town halls on Tommy Wells's Performance Parking bill, with the first being Tuesday (Jan. 22) from 6:30 to 8 pm at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I St. SW. It then gets repeated on Capitol Hill on Wednesday at Brent Elementary School (Third and North Carolina, SE).
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

If you have come recently to the tale of Near Southeast, or you're looking for a summary of what's happened in the past 12 months and what's coming in the next 12 months (hint: peanuts, crackerjack, gridlock), take a gander at my 2008 State of the Hood. With overviews as well as thumbnail sketches of the projects under construction and on the boards for 2008, you can get the big picture of what's happening in the neighborhood that's sometimes hard to grasp from the daily deluge of minutaie. From the SOTH intro:
"If you want some raw numbers on the changes the neighborhood has seen in the past 12 months, you can look at this table, or just digest this: a neighborhood that had 500 new-construction apartment/condo units and 1.2 million square feet of Class A office space 12 months ago is expected in the next 24 months to be home to 3.3 million square feet of office space, 3000-plus new apartment/condo/affordable housing units and 400 hotel rooms, not to mention a big shiny new baseball stadium."
I also took the opportunity to run some pretty scary JDLand stats as part of my 2007 year in review: "I posted 662 blog entries totalling over 135,000 words (averaging out to 1.8 posts/350 words a day, every day, and filling 191 pages if pasted into Microsoft Word). I also added more than 3,100 photos documenting the neighborhood's demolition and construction (and took thousands more beyond those). All this productivity on my end does not appear to have been for naught, judging by the estimated 1.3 million hits on JDLand's Near Southeast pages in 2007." I'm guessing 2008--at least the first four months or so--will probably match that pace. Fasten your seat belts....
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More posts: Nationals Park
 

I braved the chilly temps and gusty winds on Sunday morning for what turned out to be an abbreviated venture to get some updated photos. (I didn't post them yesterday because I thought I might go out this afternoon to get more, but it's a holiday, it's still cold, I'm pretty warm and cozy here on the sofa, and, and, and....) You'll see some shots of the demolition along First Street on the Willco site (which is about 50 percent completed), as well as a few updated shots of the ballpark, some of which show that the steps are now being poured on the grand staircase. There's also a smattering of shots of 55 M, 100 M, 70/100 I, and the at-ground-level Velocity construction, and some other vantage points that I got before high-tailing back indoors.
You can see the complete batch of photos, remembering to click on the icon if you want to see all archived photos of a certain view.
This is a good time to mention that I recently made a few changes to the Photo Archive. First, you'll now see links that allow you to toggle between seeing all photos of an angle and just the oldest and newest, which comes in handy as the number of photos continue to escalate. And, because the archive is getting pretty big, I've changed the default for when you choose to look at all angles of an intersection to show just the oldest and newest of each angle--you can then choose to see all photos for a specific angle.
 

Five years ago this weekend, with nary a thought about what I might be getting myself into, I went and took some photos of some neighborhood near my house that I'd heard might be undergoing some changes. Then I came home and put them on my web site. And just like that, here we are. Thanks to everyone who's come by over the years, and I hope you'll continue to check in--especially during the next few months, as Near Southeast hits the big time. It should be quite an interesting ride, and I'm glad I stumbled into it.
PS: In the past I've posted my now-annual State of the Hood in conjunction with the anniversary, but time has been short of late. I hope to get to it this week.
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In advance of this week's two town hall meetings on Tommy Wells's new plan to handle curbside parking in areas around the stadium, his web site now has a page with an FAQ and other detailed information about the proposal. Also, Wells's office has refuted the flyer I received late last week that said the Tuesday town hall will be about stadium-related parking and transportation issues other than just this proposal. The town halls are on Tuesday at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I St. SW, and Wednesday at Brent Elementary School, 301 North Carolina Ave. SE. Both meetings will run from 6:30 to 8 pm. The Committee on Public Works and the Environment has scheduled its hearing on this bill for Jan. 30 at 6 pm.
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

Jan 20, 2008 8:41 AM
Back on Friday, WTOP posted "Soccer Stadium at Poplar Point Could Help Nats Parking," which will warm the heart of commenters and others who are starting to agitate for the idea of using Poplar Point for parking, and perhaps even building a pedestrian bridge across the Anacostia between there and the ballpark. City Council chair Vincent Gray is quoted as floating the idea: "You could park over at Poplar Point, come across a pedestrian bridge, or otherwise be transported the short distance to the baseball stadium." Of course, it would need to be a really *high* pedestrian bridge, to allow for naval traffic along the river (remember, the Douglass Bridge is a drawbridge). There's already a newly revamped pedestrian walkway on the Douglass Bridge that now makes it a lot less nail-biting to walk over, but it's a pretty long walk.
 

Jan 19, 2008 6:12 PM
The bulldozers have finally started to move on the land bounded by First, M, Cushing, and N (known for want of a better title as the Willco site on Square 701), and, as of late this afternoon, the warehouse buildings along Cushing across from 55 M are gone, as are the garages north of N and (I think) the Admiral Limousine building. The old storefronts along N are still there, but their backs were gone when I looked. Normandie Liquors is still standing, for now. I've added these first knockdowns to my Demolished Buildings page (numbers 144 to 147) and I'll be getting some "after" photos on Sunday, frigid windchills be damned. Word is a temporary parking lot will be built on this site; eventually Willco plans an office/residential/retail project.
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More posts: staddis, Square 701
 

Jan 18, 2008 6:49 PM
DDOT has sent out a release (not yet online) advising that the stoplights on South Capitol Street at O and P (alongside the ballpark) are about to be activated. "Both signals went into 'flash' mode last Tuesday to alert motorists and pedestrians of their imminent arrival. The signals are scheduled to move into full-color operation mode on or about Tuesday, January 22, 2008. The new signals will enhance pedestrian safety and will be coordinated with neighboring signals. The new signals will also allow intersecting traffic to navigate safely." I haven't been by to see if the entrances to O and P from South Capitol were opened this week and, if not, if the activation of these signals means that they will be....
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Jan 18, 2008 1:35 PM
The last Near Southeast item on Monday's ANC 6D meeting was a request for the commission's support of the latest design of RiverFront on the Anacostia, better known as Florida Rock. This is the nearly six acres of land directly south of the ballpark, on the Anacostia River, where developers have spent 10 years trying to transition away from the concrete business currently operating there to a 1.1-million-square-foot mixed-use waterfront destination. They came close to an approved design in 2006, but in February 2007 the Zoning Commission unexpectedly sent the architects back to the drawing board, wanting a greater amount of residential space in the project, better views to and from the ballpark, and a better "expression of place."
After nearly a year, a revised design is ready to go to the Zoning Commission for approval. It now includes 323,000 square feet of residential space, 80,000 square feet of retail and 465,000 square feet of office space.
Some of the ideas floated early in the redesign process have been modified or removed, most notably "The Pitch", the plaza directly across from the ballpark's grand staircase and adjacent to the planned Diamond Teague Park. This space no longer has pitcher and catcher statues but is instead now a "festive" open plaza that will be more "integrated" with Teague and will help with the expected flow of ballpark visitors coming to and from the water taxi piers that someday may materialize out by the little red brick pumphouse.
Also, the residential and hotel buildings have had their heights grow to 130 feet, to allow for the extra square footage the zoning commission wanted. But the hotel's top two floors will now be "pure residential".
As for when some movement will actually be seen at the site, David Briggs of Holland & Knight set out a timeline based on zoning approvals, construction drawings, and the vaunted DC permitting process that estimates the start of construction on the first phase (the eastern office building) in probably fall of 2009.
He mentioned a number of times the amount of pressure that Florida Rock is under to shut down the concrete plant and to build temporary parking lots, but he explained that the site currently makes money for its company and shareholders, and there's little interest in closing it down sooner than necessary. (Briggs did say that a temporary landscaping of the eastern plaza, next to Diamond Teague, could be a possibility once the zoning approvals are received, but that the underground parking for RiverFront does extend beneath that plaza, and so excavation and construction work will need to be done there.)
It should be noted that this timeline is really about the first two phases (the eastern office building and the 160-unit residential building), because the western office building and the hotel can't be built until the construction of a new Douglass Bridge allows Florida Rock to use its land that is currently occupied by the old bridge. (The year 2016 was tossed around as a possible date for when these later phases could get started.)
Community benefits remain similar to past presentations, including an estimated 25 units of workforce housing, anticipated LEED certification for the buildings, First Source and LSDBE hiring, and a combined underground loading dock for the three western buildings, as well as the more basic amenity of replacing a huge concrete plant with shiny new buildings and access to the waterfront. The ANC has always been enthusiastic about this project, and this time around was no different, with the commissioners voting 5-2 to support the new design. The Zoning Commission hearing, for what is officially considered a modification to the project's second-stage PUD, is scheduled for March 20.
I'm really trying to just hit the newsiest items here--definitely take some time to look through my RiverFront page (have to stop calling it Florida Rock sometime) for much more detail on the current design. And read all the archived news items, too, if you want a better feel for the twists and turns this project has taken.
 

Jan 18, 2008 9:17 AM
Today's print edition of the Washington Business Journal reports that the Blue Castle at 770 M Street has sold again, this time for $25 million to Madison Marquette. The company's managing director of investment told WBJ that the building could be refurbished as a mixed-use development that would serve as an anchor to Barracks Row, and that "the space probably will have one or more major retailers as well as restaurants, an office or residential component and possibly a grocery store." The groups currently in the building have leases that expire in 2012. Preferred Real Estate Investments bought the building in December 2005 for $20.2 million, saying at the time that the building was ideal for retail stores such as a Barnes & Noble bookstore and a Whole Foods grocery, and that they hoped to start construction in 2007.
UPDATE: I guess I should have mentioned that the Blue Castle used to be a trolley barn.
 

Jan 17, 2008 8:43 PM
The Jan. 22 community meeting originally announced as focusing on Tommy Wells's new Performance Parking proposal is now being touted as a "Southwest Town Hall on Baseball Parking" according to this flier that's arrived in my inbox: "Find out how street parking in Southwest will change in the next eight weeks! Plans presented. Questions answered."
More: "Councilmember Tommy Wells will hold a Southwest Town Hall meeting to discuss Baseball Parking Plans that will be implemented in our neighborhood this season. He will also discuss his plan for Curbside Performance Parking that he believes will help protect residential neighborhoods from traffic and parking at the new stadium and help small business maintain access and availability for their customers. There will be a brief presentation of the parking plan to explain how it will work, followed by an open Question & Answer session with community residents."
So, I guess this will be the unveiling of how the city is going to handle parking near the stadium until Tommy's plan gets enacted? This should be fun. The meeting is from 6:30 to 8 pm at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 400 I St., SW. There's also a meeting for Capitol Hill residents the next night (Jan. 23) at Brent Elementary School at Third and North Carolina, SE.
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

Jan 17, 2008 5:44 PM
At Monday night's ANC 6D meeting, Monument Realty presented its request for the ANC's support in closing a 2,417-square-foot alley that runs between South Capitol and Van streets not far north of N Street. This alley is north of the now-closed BP Amoco and south of what is now a WMATA employee parking lot on land owned by Monument (there used to be a neon yellow bungalow there, until late 2006). Christy Shiker of Holland & Knight told the commissioners that the Amoco property--which faces the ballpark's western parking garage--is too small to develop on its own, but with the alley closed and the lots combined, Monument would build a 130-foot-high residential building with approximately 150 to 200 units plus 14,000 square feet of ground-floor (or perhaps two-story) retail. Monument is not committing at this time to pursuing LEED certification for this building.
Shiker then described the community benefits package that Monument was offering to the ANC in return for the loss of this public space, including a $50,000 contribution to the community fund, the retail, First Source employment preferences, and an affordable housing component that would match whatever is called for whenever the city's Inclusionary Zoning mandates are finally hammered out. Monument would also work toward agreements on ANC6D resident preferences, to be determined with the ANC at a later date.
This became a sticking point, with Commissioner David Sobelsohn concerned about giving the ANC's support for this project merely on promises to make agreements later. Shiker pointed out that Monument has made these agreements before for their other Ballpark District projects, and also that the ANC will have another crack at the project when down the road it undergoes its mandatory Capitol Gateway Overlay Review. But Sobelsohn still felt that the ANC was being handed a "take it or leave it" proposition.
An audience member asked if Monument would be planning to build a temporary parking lot if the alley closing is approved, but Shiker said that Monument's goal is to develop the land, that they "want a building, not a parking lot." (Though one must admit that that is some pretty plum stadium-parking territory.) There were also questions about the Public Space Storage building just to the north (echoing my WTDW entry from last week), but Monument's representatives said that they didn't think the storage company would be moving.
Commissioner Bob Siegel moved to support the alley closing with further negotiations on the proposed benefits package as the project proceeds, but the ANC voted 2-2-1 and so the resolution did not pass.
The alley closing bill is B17-0552, and Shiker told the ANC that she expected a public hearing in late February, with perhaps council action in March or April. No date for actual construction of the project was mentioned.
Coming tomorrow--a recap of the Florida Rock portion of the ANC meeting, though you don't have to wait until then to see the latest project renderings that were presented. But my long-winded summary of what was said during the meeting will have to wait a bit longer.
 

Jan 17, 2008 3:59 PM
People ask me a lot about how I think the office/residential market will be in Near Southeast in 2008, to which I always give the following learned reply: "Uhhhhhhhh, how should I know?"
But the Washington Times has a piece today about Grubb & Ellis's forecast for commercial real estate in the DC area, which the Times summarizes thusly: "Washington's commercial property market will not be bad in 2008, just not as good as the past five years[.] ... With the downtown area inundated by new construction and tenants in recent years, developers are looking to build in sections of the city where lower land prices make them ripe for new projects[.] Chief among them are the North of Massachusetts Avenue neighborhood, the area around the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium and the District's Southwest Waterfront. That is where land is available."
You can drill down to the Grubb & Ellis report for DC by starting on this page. The actual text paints a slightly less rosy picture than how the Times depicts it:"The development pipeline in D.C. is going to grow as areas such as NoMa and Southeast, which already have elevated vacancy rates in Class A buildings, will break ground on a number of projects over the next two years. Developers in each market are hoping their lower economics will attract tenants, but until they do, both markets may have a temporary oversupply."
(Perhaps it's not the best timing to be posting this when the Dow is down 300 points.)
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Jan 17, 2008 9:27 AM
My Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra of the Post is an abridged version of my big summary of Friday's hearing on stadium parking issues, so if you're coming from the print version, read the blog version for lots of additional detail, along with my Stadium FAQ and Stadium Transporation and Parking page for more information and background on it all.
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

Jan 16, 2008 6:06 PM
Just drove by and saw that the little garage on the 1015 Half Street site now is gone, making it the first entry in the Demolished Buildings gallery for 2008, and the 143rd building that I've seen come down in Near Southeast since January 2003. This site--formerly home to Nation, itself demolished in May of 2007--is expected to see the start of excavation on Opus's planned 410,000-sq-ft office building Any Minute Now.
 

Jan 16, 2008 1:42 PM
(This is the first of three dispatches I'll be posting over the next few days from Monday's ANC 6D meeting. Can you feel the excitement building?)
The developers of the planned office building at 1111 New Jersey came looking for the ANC's support in advance of their Jan. 31 Capitol Gateway Overlay Review at the Zoning Commission. This project has been revised over the past few months after Donohoe was chosen by WMATA to acquire the 5,000-square-foot lot on top of the Navy Yard Metro's east entrance at New Jersey and M--by expanding 1111 New Jersey's footprint to this lot, which fronts M Street, the project became subject to a CG Overlay Review (boring tutorial here). While the WMATA land is being sold to Donohoe, this is in fact a joint development project with WMATA, who I imagine will receive a dollar or two over the coming years once the building is built and leased.
The new design was described by WDG Architecture as 220,000 square feet of office space with 5,700 square feet of ground-floor retail in a glass-facade building. While it uses a smidge of the WMATA land, the project will not be built on top of the station entrance as is happening with 55 M--the station canopy will remain, and a there will be a large public plaza at this "important corner", along with a 60-foot setback with a double line of trees stretching up New Jersey. (Non-obsessive observers might not remember that 1111 NJ's footprint does not include the site of St. Matthew's Church immediately to the north--that lot is being acquired by Ruben Companies for a rumored residential project, where no plans have yet been made, a Ruben rep tells me.)
Donohoe indicated that it plans to go for LEED certification for 1111, and mentioned that some of the ground-floor space would be designed with restaurant uses in mind, though the presenters said they remain aware of the requirements for community-oriented retail and preferred uses in the overlay area.
Beyond the LEED certification, retail, and public spaces, the developer offered no community benefits package to the ANC. Donohoe considers this project a matter of right that requires no additional benefits offerings, a stand which reopened the wounds from back in April when the earlier iteration of this project came before the ANC looking for support for a zoning special exception (and was voted down, though the BZA approved the waiver anyway).
The feelings of the commissioners hadn't changed in the intervening months, and they voted 5-0 not to support the project because of the lack of community benefits. (There was some procedural wrangling about the wording of the motion, but since the church where the ANC meetings are held is absolutely impossible to hear in, I didn't get the specifics--something about voting "not to support" versus voting "to oppose", I believe.)
No timeline for the start of construction was mentioned. Perhaps more information will be forthcoming at the Jan. 31 zoning hearing.
More ANC reports coming tomorrow--I'll have news of Monument Realty's plans for the BP Amoco site at South Capitol and N, followed by the latest in the Florida Rock saga. Stay tuned!
UPDATE: Donohoe was nice enough to pass along the rendering of the new design, which I've added to the top of my 1111 New Jersey page.
UPDATE II: Correcting a smidge of misinformation on the St. Matthew's site.
 

Jan 16, 2008 10:38 AM
A hearing is now scheduled for Jan. 30 at 6:00 pm on Tommy Wells's Performance Parking Pilot plan (B17-580), in front of the council's Committee on Public Works and the Environment. If you're interested in testifying, read the hearing announcement for instructions. And don't forget that two community meetings about the plan are scheduled for next week (Jan. 22 and 23). See my Upcoming Events Calendar for details; if you're not checking that calendar on a regular basis, you should!
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