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Renderings of Planned Baseball Art on Ballpark Garages
The Post's Dan Steinberg blogged today about the latest planned "public art" at Nationals Park, first reported by WBJ last month, and linked to two renderings of the 30 stainless steel orbs lit by LEDs that will be installed on the infamous garages by the spring of next year.
On his "In Progress" page, sculptor Thomas Sayre notes how 70 percent of ballpark-goers arrive from the north side of the stadium, and that the garage facades that greet visitors are "large, powerful, and do little themselves to welcome fans to the magical experience of a baseball game."
He explains the concept behind his work thusly: "Inspired by the primary action of the game of baseball itself - the pitch followed by the hit - this public art project consists of a succession of polished stainless spheres derived from a spinning baseball which depicts physics of how a 90-mile per hour pitch is able to curve in such extraordinary ways. Eighteen stainless steel "baseballs" follow the theoretical model of the trajectory of a curving fast ball pitch. The western garage facade will show the more straight and higher-angled trajectory of the same ball as it is hit by the batter and is depicted with twelve "baseballs". The pitch comes at you from the left and sails off from you to the right as you enter."
UPDATE: After hearing a comment or two about the garages themselves, I thought a little bit of history might be in order. I just posted this in the comments:
If you weren't around during the haggling over the construction of the stadium in 2006, you missed all of the angst about the garages. MLB mandated 925 1225 on-site parking spaces. They also mandated a stadium ready by Opening Day 2008. And the city mandated a spending cap for construction. Those three requirements left the city little choice but to construct the garages in their current location, above ground.
I invite readers to plow through my *many* posts from back in the day, to learn of such things as the proposed Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness, and other ideas that fell by the wayside because of political and financial reality.
This doesn't preclude the eventual demolition of the garages and putting them underground, but I haven't heard that spoken of much since 2008, when most people saw the garages, sighed, and began just averting their eyes.
UPDATE II: A reader passed this link along--if you click on Projects, then Pitch Terrain, you'll see what's billed as a "finalist proposal" for the competition for the Nats garage art. This design, by Rob Ley, was an "undulating lighted facade system," using aluminum screens to simulate the flow of the ball between pitcher and batter.
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

Maritime Plaza About to Change Hands?
Multiple anonymous sources are allowing CityBiz Real Estate to report: "Corporate Office Properties Trust is awaiting lender approval on a $120 million acquisition of Maritime Plaza, a 12-acre site located at the East End of the Washington, D.C. Naval Yard, multiple sources tell citybiz real estate." This follows a story earlier today saying that COPT was close to purchasing an unnamed site, described only as being a fully leased location occupied primarily by defense contractors.
If this goes through, it would be the third time the site has changed hands since construction on the second office building was completed in 2003, with Bernstein Cos. selling it for $92 million in 2004, and then Brickman Associates reportedly paying $115 million in October of 2005. The site, which has two completed office buildings, has included plans for two additional 175,000-square-foot office buildings and a 250-room hotel; leasing is handled by Lincoln Property Company. The land beneath the buildings and plans, however, continues to be owned by Washington Gas, as it has been since pretty much the dawn of time.
 

A Few Upcoming Events, and a Few New Photos
This week's calendar of events:
* Tuesday at 5 pm is PSA 105's "ice cream social and dog treat event" to celebrate America's Night Out Against Crime. It will be held across the street from the MPD 1-D substation at 5th and E, SE, in Marion Park. (Also, for your long-range calendar, note that the PSA's annual dog show will be on Sept. 25 at 10 am, also at Marion Park.) If you're just tuning in, PSAs are the Metropolitan Police Department's Police Service Areas.
* Also on Tuesday, at 6:30 pm, is the second Capitol Riverfront Heritage Trail Meeting, a joint project between Cultural Tourism DC and the Capitol Riverfront BID to create a Neighborhood Heritage Trail for the area. It's at Capper Seniors #1, 900 Fifth Street, SE. (Here's the flyer for the first meeting.)
* Thursday's outdoor movie, weather permitting, is Rocky. It starts at 8:45 pm at Canal Park.
And, I took a long-delayed photo trek around the neighborhood on Sunday (though remind me to never do it again on a game day--too many cars and buses getting in the way!). They aren't really terribly exciting pictures, and the clouds were uncooperative at times, but I did get updated images of the progress at 1015 Half Street, and of the final block (east and west sides) of Capitol Quarter's first phase. And I documented the now-empty space where the Little Red Building used to be. You can also browse the entire batch of the days' photos, and click on the icon to see all photos for a given location.
 

Yards Park Grand Opening Set for Sept. 10-12
From the BID's latest newsletter: "Mark your calendars for the Yards Park Grand Opening weekend on Friday, Sept. 10 - Sunday, Sept. 12th! Join us to kick off the opening of the 5.5 acre world-class riverfront park, where celebrations will include live music, a variety of food and drinks, fitness classes, children's activities, and much more!" More details to come, they say.
You can see the photos I took of the park's progress back in late May, along with more details on the park's design--hopefully I'll get to take some more before too long.
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More posts: The Yards, Yards Park
 

Second NatsTown Green-Up on Friday, in Southwest
(Though this is in reference to the neighborhood "around" Nationals Park, the locations are actually in Southwest. But it's still worth posting.)
From the Nationals: "The Washington Nationals Dream Foundation will team up with Earth Conservation Corps to give area residents and local businesses the opportunity to help beautify the neighborhood surrounding Nationals Park. More than 100 volunteers will take to the streets from 8am to noon [on Friday, July 30] to clean up areas at three separate locations - the Matthew Henson Center (2000 Half Street, SW); the intersection between 1st and Q Streets, SW; and the park at 3rd and I Streets, SW. Nationals Pitchers Tyler Clippard and Craig Stammen will also join volunteers for a portion of the morning's clean-up." I understand that Colin Balester is going to be part of the cleanup as well; I don't know if that's in addition to Clippard and Stammen, or in place of one of them.
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More posts: Nationals Park
 

Reader Mailbag: Kudos to Nats Park First Aid Staff
From reader Linda G. of Richmond: "I want to let someone know how appreciative I am of the wonderful people that came to my rescue last Saturday night at the Dave Mathews/Zac Brown concert. I had ridden the metro and walked in. Then had to walk to our seats which were in section 418 three rows from the top of the stadium. By the time I got to my seat I was suffering from heat exhaustion and about to pass out. My son got wet paper towels and ice but ended up having to go get the first aid people to come help. They were WONDERFUL and I want to let them know how appreciative I am of them."
 

Barry Releases Hold on DDOT Move to 55 M
From City Paper's Housing Complex blog: "The Department of Real Estate Services tells me that Councilmember Marion Barry has dropped his disapproval resolution on the District Department of Transportation's move to 55 M Street SE, which momentarily put the whole thing in limbo. That means the move can go forward as planned, without having to wait until reconsideration by the Council in September."
 

Vida Fitness Coming [Somewhere] in 2013?
From a story in today's Post on the growing Vida Fitness empire, a sentence that has set some hearts aflutter: "Next spring von Storch will open Vida's fourth location in five years in the renovated 1612 U, with a fifth planned for the Navy Yard in 2013." So, I checked with the folks at the Navy Yard (since, despite some peoples' desperate desire to call the entire neighborhood "Navy Yard," there is still a functioning entity with that name that's only been around for 210 years, and so to call something "Navy Yard" means that every single time it's used it will force the question "Do you mean inside the walls of the Navy Yard itself, or the neighborhood around it?"). While there was no firm denial, it was explained that fitness facilities on Navy installations are operated by the service's own Morale, Welfare, and Recreation personnel, and that that business model probably isn't changing.
Without anything else to go on--and with no neighborhood projects currently touting a 2013 delivery date--we'll just have to wait and see which developer cops to being in talks with Vida. Though, if I had to guess, I'd just say this--it would certainly be easy for someone who perhaps doesn't know the terminologies and layout of the neighborhood to easily mix up "the Navy Yard" with "The Yards."
[And now I'll return to mending from some recent medical stuff (nothing to worry about, but I do need to do some of this "resting" I've always heard about). Apologies if posting/Tweeting/replying/whatever remains slow for a bit.]
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More posts: Navy Yard, Retail, The Yards
 

Discounted July 27 Nats Tickets for Jefferson Residents
If you're feeling like taking in a Nats game soon, and you live at the Jefferson (70 I), the Nats are offering discounted tickets for the Tuesday, July 27 game against the Braves [*cough*Strasburg*cough*]. Details are here; tickets start at $7.
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More posts: jpi, Nationals Park
 

Jul 22, 2010 2:21 PM
Barry Files Disapproval Notice on DDOT 55 M Move
Yesterday I posted about how the city council had until close of business to decide whether or not to slow down DDOT's planned move to 55 M Street, SE--and now I'm hearing that Marion Barry has filed a "disapproval notice" that does delay the DDOT move. (Apparently he did the same thing with the contract for the new headquarters for the Department of Employment Services.) There will now probably be some behind-the-scenes wrangling to convince Barry to withdraw his disapproval--once/if he does, the contract would then be considered immediately approved, and the move can proceed.
 

Jul 22, 2010 2:33 AM
Upcoming Events: Seabiscuit, Dave Matthews, SoS
For your scheduling pleasure:
* Thursday's BID outdoor movie is Seabiscuit, the heartwarming tale of a horse swimming across the ocean for food (no, wait, that's not right). It starts at Canal Park at Second and M streets, SE, at 8:45 pm, but you can arrive early for some hula hooping with Hoop Jams at 8 pm. Rain cancellations will be posted on the BID web site by 4 pm.
* On Friday night (July 23) the Dave Matthews Band will be in concert at 7 pm at Nationals Park, with the Zac Brown Band opening. Tickets are still available, and the concert will go on rain or shine. (If you're heading to the ballpark for the concert and are unfamiliar with the territory, here's my Stadium Parking information page. But make it easy on yourself just take Metro.) Speaking of the stadium parking page, I've now added the new (tiny) $10 lot on the northwest corner of New Jersey and I.
* The rest of the weekend will be quiet (and hot), but then on Tuesday the 27th the Summer of Strasburg will return to the neighborhood, as Stephen is expected to pitch against the Atlanta Braves in a 7:05 pm game.
 

Jul 21, 2010 10:45 AM
Details on Pay-by-Phone Parking Pilot Near Ballpark
Pay By Phone Sample StickerThis week DDOT has started a series of parking pilot programs across the city, trying out different types of street parking payment systems to determine which technology and solutions work best for DC. The pilot chosen for some of the streets near Nationals Park is "ParkMobile," which allows you to pay for parking with your cellphone. Drivers sign up at the company's web site, and can download an iPhone or Blackberry app or use a mobile web site to pay for parking. (Hurry up with that Android app, wouldya?) Here's a map showing the streets in Near Southeast where the ParkMobile pilot is underway (basically all of M and the streets from the west side of Canal Park over to South Capitol, north of M). You'll receive a text message reminder when you've got about 15 minutes left of time. (And DDOT says that ParkMobile's transaction fees are being waived during the pilot.)
Has anyone tried it out? If so, leave your experiences in the comments.
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More posts: parking, Nationals Park
 

Jul 21, 2010 10:15 AM
DDOT's Move to 55 M Still in the Works
WBJ updates its story from a few months ago to basically say, yes, DDOT is still planning to move to 55 M Street, Monument Realty's building on top of the west entrance of the Navy Yard station. The city council has until close of business today (Wednesday) to decide if it wants to hold up the plans, and apparently the council's budget office is taking a close look at the lease, since it will cost DDOT about $6.9 million per year over 10 years to consolidate all of its workers in Near Southeast, compared to the $3.1 million it's paying now to lease space in multiple buildings.
With USDOT just two blocks to the east, M Street SE would turn into Transportation Row if DDOT does indeed come to 55 M.
 

Jul 19, 2010 7:48 PM
Checking in with CSX on the Virginia Avenue Tunnel
The folks at CSX led a few local bloggers on a little tour late this afternoon along the footprint of the Virginia Avenue Tunnel, between New Jersey Avenue and 12th Street, SE, to give us a feel for the scope of the upcoming work to widen (and deepen) the tunnel to allow for double tracking and double-stacked railcars.
There isn't really any news to report--it wasn't a shock that there weren't any sudden outbursts of information about noise and dust abatement, traffic measures, access to the houses in the 300 block of Virginia Avenue, or anything along those lines, because CSX is holding all of its cards veeeeeeery close to its corporate vest until the NEPA process gets underway. They are expecting that their actual plans will go out for public comment sometime in the November-December timeframe, if all goes according to schedule. That said, here are a few items worth passing along (some of which I may have posted before but are worth repeating). But keep in mind that this is all still preliminary, the exact alignment won't be known until the design/build and NEPA process are completed, yadda yadda yadda.
* If you stand on the bridge over the train tracks at New Jersey Avenue and look eastward toward the mouth of the tunnel at Second Street (seen at right), you can envision the beginning of the parallel track that will run first between the pillars of the SE Freeway, then in an open trench all the way to 12th Street while they're widening the existing tunnel. The new tunnel will expand four feet on either side of the current alignment, and the open trench will be dug on a line that extends about 19 feet south from the new wider footprint. They are working with the owner of the Charley Horse Stables just to the south of the train tracks to see how her operations can be handled during the estimated three-year construction time.
* The temporary trench will run along the south side of Virginia Avenue on a line that will include most of the sidewalk and grass in front of 225 Virginia Avenue (right up to where the in-ground grates are, at which point the trench will shift northward toward the freeway somewhat). There will be coordination between CSX and StonebridgeCarras, who will be working on the reconstruction of 225 Virginia at the same time.
* Then, if you stand just south of the intersection at Fourth and Virginia and look west, there is a lamp post a few feet south of the stop sign in that spot--the edge of the trench will be about 9 feet south of that lamp post, which means the trench will be very close to the first house on Fourth, but gets farther from the houses in the 300 block as it goes west back to 225 Virginia. (I should have taken a picture. Oops.)
* At Fifth and Virginia, the off-ramp from the freeway will be shifted a couple feet northward--not that there's more than a few feet for it to move--so that it sits directly next to the embankment. Then, it looks like the Marines' fence along the 500 block of Virginia will have to be shifted about halfway down the hill from its current alignment, along with some of their HVAC equipment near Seventh Street.
* The work may require the closure of the on-ramp to the freeway at Eighth Street, requiring drivers to head to 11th and N to get on the 11th Street Bridges (at least until the new on-ramps are completed at 11th and M).
* At Ninth and Virginia, Dogma's property might not be clipped, but CSX will be working to help reorient Dogma's operations toward L Street (since the current access via Virginia Avenue will be unavailable). It's possible that L Street might temporarily become two-way during construction.
* The trench will come very close to the northern fence of the Virginia Avenue Garden, but they aren't sure yet of the exact final location.
* And if you've never seen the east end of the tunnel, east of 11th Street, here you go.
Of course, through all of this, all of Virginia Avenue will be closed to traffic, and the current sidewalks will be gone as well. There will be "bridges" across the tunnel and trench for vehicular and pedestrian traffic at Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth, and apparently pedestrian access will be maintained to the underpass at Second Street to get to Garfield Park.
But, as I said, the information residents most want to know isn't yet public, and I wouldn't expect hard news about the plans and mitigation measures until the NEPA process gets futher along. There will be a public comment period after a series of public meetings, though they are continuing to work with the city and the Feds behind the scenes. It will be interesting to see what comes to the table.
 

Jul 19, 2010 3:04 PM
First Rendering of 'Reskinned' 225 Virginia
The city's Department of Real Estate Services (formerly OPM) has put out a solicitation to sublease 50,750 square feet of below-grade space at 225 Virginia Avenue as a data center. While that may be terribly interesting to some people, probably the item of greater interest is the rendering on the first page, which is the first glimpse of the "reskinned" building, showing the current gray windowless monolith rebuilt into a more open structure that actually resembles an office building. The rendering is from the building's southwest corner, so the SE Freeway (not shown) would run "behind" the building. You can just barely see Capitol Quarter townhouses at far right, making that Third Street.
The solicitation also says that construction is expected to begin in November of this year and last 15 months, with development being handled by StonebridgeCarras while the city continues to own the land. When completed, three city agencies will occupy the building--the Commission on Arts and Humanities, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer [hence the data center stuff], and the Child and Family Services Agency. If you see people wandering around the site on Tuesday, it's a site tour for parties interested in the data center colocation. Responses to the solicitation are due to the city on July 30.
If you're just joining the story now, feel free to read my past 225 Virginia posts to catch up on the many twists and turns this building has seen over the past few years. (h/t DCMud)
 

Jul 17, 2010 11:10 AM
Rearview Mirror: A Swinging Good Time at Half and N
They say you never really know what's going on inside the walls of someone's home, and that certainly would have been the case if you had wandered by the northwest corner of Half and N in the early 1980s. The red brick rowhouse at 36 N Street, SE (seen at left in May 2003) would have looked unassuming enough to you, until you opened up your copy of the Washington Post on March 2, 1981, and read this:
"It was his first night at The Playground Swing Club in Southeast Washington, and the 37-year-old Army veteran was ready. He stripped and headed up the red-carpeted stairs to the lounge where a few men and women, most dressed only in robes, were sitting on cushioned floors and platforms. [...] Soon, he and a young woman he had never before met strolled into The Playroom, where bodies were lying in all directions on mattresses and a raised platform. He and the woman joined in. 'Everybody freeze!" a voice suddenly shouted. 'This is a raid!' "
DC police had spent six weeks investigating The Playground, work which included having two undercover police couples "stripped to their underwear [who] spent three hours listening to the friendly discussions and watching the lovemaking." But when the bust happened in February of 1981, there were no charges of anyone paying for sex: the owner eventually was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $500 for operating a public hall without a license and failing to have a proper certificate of occupancy for the club. An additional charge of selling alcohol without a license was dropped.
A few of the "participants" at the house that night were charged under the city's sodomy laws, which brought swift condemnation from the ACLU: "Sexual conduct between consenting adults is none of the government's business." The raid also made for titillating reading in the Post, as the paper dryly explained the "swinging" culture: "What was happening at The Playground was a plain and simple orgy--an activity that seems to have become as common among a certain underground of adults as was dancing cheek-to-cheek in the 1930s."
The Playground was closed soon after, and a 1982 attempt to turn 36 N into an "erotica museum" was shot down by the city and neighbors. The rowhouse itself lasted until 2005, getting demolished two years before its neighbors met the wrecking ball as well. The site, now owned by Akridge as part of its Half Street footprint, is directly across from Nationals Park (which I guess you could also call a swinging establishment!), where the Bullpen now provides a different brand of entertainment during baseball season.
As for the Playground's owner? It was Dennis Sobin, longtime city activist and current mayoral candidate. A profile of Sobin earlier this year by the Georgetown Voice gives a quick summary of his years in Washington, including his ownership of multiple strip clubs, adult bookstores, and brothels in the late 70s, a third-place finish in the 1982 mayor's race, and a 10-year prison term in Florida on child pornography charges. He currently runs the Prisons Foundation, devoted to prison artists and their work.
(And no, I had no idea that this little item would end up tied to current city politics when I started!)
 

Jul 15, 2010 10:40 AM
LRB RIP: Updating the Demolished Buildings Gallery
The Little Red Building at Second and L, SE passed into history on Wednesday, but at least it will live on in my Demolished Buildings Gallery, as building #160 to meet its maker since I started taking photos in Near Southeast. Also added to the gallery today are the Anacostia Community Boathouse and its sister building, demolished earlier this month to make way for the 11th Street Bridges. If you haven't wandered through the gallery in a while, take a moment to watch the neighborhood's old life pass in front of your eyes.
 

Jul 13, 2010 3:11 PM
Zoning Commission Allows Community Center Delay
At Monday night's Zoning Commission meeting, the commissioners voted 3-0 after a brief discussion to approve a request by the DC Housing Authority and the Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopers to extend (again) the approved timeline for the long-planned Community Center at Fifth and K. The commissioners saw letters of support from both ANC 6B and 6D (you can see 6D's letter here), and seemed appeased by the notion that the $7-plus million required to build the center is figured into the $25 million that DCHA plans to eventually receive from a second bond offering (after the $29 million one late last year that's paying for infrastructure improvements), once the market improves.
In return for 6D's support for the time extension, the Housing Authority agreed to a number of conditions, mainly having to do with status reports and project updates, but also agreed (according to the letter) to "work with the ANC, D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Marine Corps to implement the agreement governing use of the Marine Corps' playing fields for the community." This is apparently a reaction to attempts to gain wider public access than is currently given to the fields at 7th and Virginia barracks as was originally agreed to when DCHA transferred that land to the Marines back in 1999.
The new time extension for the community center calls for building permit applications to be filed by July 1, 2012, with construction having to begin within 12 months of that date.
 

Jul 13, 2010 10:11 AM
Water Taxi Company Moving Toward Launch
Via SWill's Twitter feed, it appears that American River Taxi may be closer to launching its initial service between Georgetown, the Southwest Waterfront, and Diamond Teague Park (next to Nationals Park). Their newly redesigned web site lists hours of operation (seven days a week), and a map shows the three initial stops along with future stops at National Airport, Alexandria, and National Harbor. No announcement as to when service will start, or what prices will be.
 

Jul 11, 2010 6:40 PM
The Little Red [Shell of a] Building
I can't imagine there's too many interested people who haven't yet seen this for themselves, so it's a bit more in the spirit of historical documentation that I've posted some images of what's left of the Little Red Building, now roofless and windowless and little more than a structure of [red] bricks, with a "Coming Soon! Parkway Wine and Spirits" sign hung on the fence.
And I'll remain sentimental about it, since it will always be a symbol to me of what Near Southeast was--and wasn't--when I first began venturing around with camera in hand nearly eight years ago. I've taken more than 200 photos of the northwest corner of Second and L since 2003 (see 60 or so of them here), but the first, seen at right, taken on Jan. 20, 2003, will always be my favorite.
 
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