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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: Monument Valley/Half St.
See JDLand's Monument Valley/Half St. 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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186 Blog Posts Since 2003
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On the Fly Daily Lunch Vending on Half Street
If you're looking for more lunchtime food options in Near Southeast (and who isn't?), here's word from the Capitol Riverfront BID that local "eco-vending" company On the Fly, which has been setting up shop before Nationals games on Half Street about 100 feet north of the ballpark entrance, will now be offering lunch from their neon-green electric "smartkarts" at that location daily from 11 am to 3 pm, starting today (April 22). Quoting: "In addition to its spicy turkey chili, named a "Home Run" by the Washington Post, On the Fly will offer Rocklands BBQ sandwiches, soft tacos with your choice of chicken estafado, pork carnitas or veggie filling, Japanese edamame salads, Brazilian chopped salad with beef tenderloin, couscous, vegetarian sides, energy bars and other organic natural snacks and beverages." Here's a coupon for a complimentary side order or snack between now and Friday--and it mentions Julia's Empanadas as another of their offerings (yay!). On the Fly also has carts at Farragut North, Gallery Place, and the Arboretum.
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More posts: Monument Valley/Half St.
 

Updated Before and Afters: Half Street (and Others)
The surprise appearance by the sun on Thursday gave me the chance to update some north-and-east photos on the way to the ballpark, mainly along Half Street, with a few from First, Cushing, and Van thrown in. You can see the entire batch of new photos, or you can check the 70/100 I, 909 New Jersey, Velocity, and Monument Half Street pages for a little bit of context as to what you're seeing, or you can look for the icon by intersection (Half and I, Half and K, Half and L, Half and M, First and I, Cushing and L, Cushing and M, Van and M). Make sure to check out the new photos I took last week along First Street if you missed them, to get a pretty complete view of what's happened in the neighborhood in the past two years. (Or just come down and see for yourself.) Hopefully soon I'll get some additional updated shots from along South Capitol Street and New Jersey Avenue (which will be changing thanks to 909 New Jersey now beginning the showy phase of its construction).
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More posts: 70/100 I, 909 New Jersey, jpi, Monument Valley/Half St., Square 699n, Velocity Condos
 

Wednesday Night Ballpark Story Roundup
* If you haven't been inside the ballpark yet and want a free visit on either Friday night (April 4) or Saturday afternoon (April 5), WTOP tells you how. (Hint: it involves signing up for the Nats promotional e-mail list.)
* The credit crunch on Wall Street has caused the interest rates on a small portion of the stadium bonds to skyrocket, says the Examiner.
* WTOP says that Metro feels pretty good about its performance on Opening Night (as do most riders, at least evidenced by the comments you folks have been posting), but they've got a few tweaks in store for the homestand next week. They'd like you to stretch out on the Navy Yard platform, please, and will put in more trash cans so that people can toss drinks and food and cigarettes when they get to the station.
* Speaking of the Navy Yard station, if you've done that walk up Half Street and want information on what's planned there beyond the renderings on the east-side fences (or want to see what was there up until about 18 months ago), check out my Monument Half Street page. Plans for the west side of the street, where the Southeastern Bus Garage has now been vacated by Metro, are stalled thanks to a lawsuit brought by Monument against WMATA after the land was sold to Akridge in a way that Monument contends was unfair.
* This is a little old, but I'll toss it in anyway (I *think* I haven't already linked to it; it's all just a blur now)--MLB.com reports that Stan Kasten was very happy with how Opening Night went in terms of the fan experience.
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More posts: West Half St., Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St., Nationals Park
 

This Afternoon's Ballpark News Roundup
(I'm not sure there's anyone who is wishing more than me that the dang thing would open already....)
* The Examiner looks at Southwest residents just across from the ballpark who are selling the parking spaces that came with their homes to Nats fans for as much as $3,000 a season. But if you park near these houses and don't have a visitors pass (or aren't one of the chosen few who fork over the dough for these private spaces), expect the residents to call DPW to have you ticketed and towed.
* The Post's newly reconstituted DC Wire blog catches up with Ken Wyban, the only resident homeowner on the ballpark footprint to lose his house when the city invoked eminent domain to take over the land. (City Paper talked to him a few weeks ago in their big ballpark Winners and Losers cover story.)
* Reader Sean alerts us that the Express has a special section on the ballpark today too. Looks like a bunch of the pieces are available here.
* Even the Annapolis Capitol newspaper gets in on the fun with its own overview of the ballpark, though they get a demerit for misspelling South Capitol Street and for mentioning the "Southeast neighborhoods west of the ballpark." (Uh.....)
* WTOP talks about the plans for security around the ballpark, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $1.2 million.
* And, just as I'm finishing this up, I see that MLB.com has a new article about the preparations and plans for this weekend's festivities.
Apparently the beautifying of the neighborhood is underway, too--the black fence along Half Street at the Monument hole in the ground now has art on it (see 55 M web cam) as well as banners on the upper floors of 55 M facing the ballpark, and the Stadium web cam shows a "Welcome Home Nats" sign on the side of 100 M. The recent jet-black paint job on the old Domino's at 1200 South Capitol is part of this, too, and look for more Monument Realty "art" around all of its holdings.
 

Tidbits: Permits, Yards Names, No SE Freeway?, South Cap Tunnel, 55 M Web Cam, A New Crusade
Just a bunch of tiny items worth highlighting on a dreary Saturday (no new photos today in this muck):
* A building permit has been approved to build a surface parking lot along First Street between M and N, where Normandie Liquors and its brethren were demolished last month. And the Archdiocese of Washington has applied for a public space permit for the 1300 block of First Street, SE--does the Popemobile need special parking permits?
* As plans at The Yards continue to move forward, there's now official names for the first-phase projects. Say hello to The Boilermaker Shop, The Pattern Shop Lofts, and Factory 202. (And 401 M and 400 Tingey, but those aren't anywhere near as catchy.)
* The 55 M web cam is no longer available to the public. Perhaps they want the Opening Day vista to be a big surprise. Or they don't want people watching the last-minute work on the Navy Yard Metro station. (I wonder if the gas main hit on Thursday was caught by this camera.)
* Some commenters are discussing the idea that's been floated of someday demolishing the Southeast-Southwest Freeway. Getting rid of this Berlin Wall that separates Capitol Hill and Near Southeast (and splits Southwest) was brought up in the National Capital Planning Commission's 1997 Extending the Legacy framework plan, if you want to see it actually on paper. (Apparently an updated NCPC framework plan is scheduled to come out this spring, which looks like it continues to have Virginia Avenue marked where the freeway currently is.) As to whether I'll see this done in my lifetime, well, it would be a nice surprise.
If you really want to go high-concept, you can read DDOT's 2003 South Capitol Street Gateway and Improvement Study to see their ideas for a tunnel that would link I-295 and the SE/SW Freeway for through traffic, leaving South Capitol Street to become the grand urban gateway boulevard planners envision. At Wednesday's public meeting on the South Capitol Street Draft Environmental Impact Statement, DDOT said that the tunnel isn't totally off the table, but they decided that a new Douglass Bridge and other South Capitol Street improvements could move forward separately. But could a tunnel still work if the dream of dismantling the SE/SW Freeway were realized?
* I've tried to remain (mostly) unopinionated on various projects during the five years I've run this site. But sometimes, it's necessary to take a stand, to come out from behind the cloak of neutrality and crusade for what you believe in. So I'm going to take advantage of this bully pulpit and fight for one thing: Arched Bascule!
 

More Updated Photos and Progress Reports
Yesterday I posted a whole batch of updated photos of the ballpark's exterior; today you can check out the project pages for the residential projects 70/100 I Street, Onyx (both opening later this year) and Velocity (2009) along with the office projects 100 M (2008) and 55 M (2009) for lots of new shots of those projects, or you can look at alllllll the photos from yesterday on a single page (ballpark shots, too). Don't forget the icon if you want to look at how an intersection has changed over the past few years.
Items of note from my wanderings:
* The south side of I Street is now paved between New Jersey Avenue and Half Street, and I've been told that I Street will be "driveable" by Opening Day;
* First Street is now paved south of K, and paving up to I doesn't look far off;
* The Merritt Cab garage at First and K now has a "Moving March 31, 2008" sign on it; and
* JPI's 909 New Jersey Avenue residential building (between I and K) is not far from reaching ground level, so be prepared for the arrival of another skeleton in the skyline before long.
If *I'm* finding it all hard to comprehend and harder to keep up with, I can only imagine how non-obsessive observers must feel. I'm kind of looking forward to the pace slowing back down a bit come May....
 

Breaking: Monument Realty Wins Preliminary Injunction on Southeastern Bus Garage Sale
I've been passed the news that a judge has granted Monument Realty's request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting WMATA from taking "any further action to dispose of" the Southeastern Bus Garage. The two sides are to file recommendations on further proceedings by Wednesday at noon, and the injunction stays in effect until the court orders otherwise. Monument filed suit in October, asking that the planned sale be invalidated.
(Adding that this shouldn't, as best I can tell, delay the removal of the buses from the garage by Opening Day, since just yesterday the WMATA board approved a plan to fund the relocation of the buses with monies from other accounts and from the District, and not from any proceeds of the expected sale of the garage site.)
UPDATE: I now have a PDF of the ruling, which gives a lot of background on how the bidding process for the garage site was handled by WMATA. My background in law is slim to none, so I'm wanting to be very cautious about how I characterize all this (I'm sure there will be plenty of media coverage coming soon), but the ruling does state that Monument has "demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that they were substantially prejudiced when WMATA considered Akridge's nonresponsive bid and participated in improper ex parte discussions with Akridge."
UPDATE II: Here's a short Post piece on the ruling.
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More posts: West Half St., Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St.
 

Monument: Half Street Construction Not 'Stopped'
After reading this in Tom Boswell's column today--"On the other side of Half Street is a huge block-long hole, several stories deep, where construction by Monument Realty has stopped"--I contacted Monument to find out if this is indeed the case.
(For those just joining us, a little background: Monument owns the entire east side of Half Street between M and N, just to the north of the ballpark, and is currently building the 55 M Street office building on the north end of the site, on top of the west entrance of the Navy Yard Metro station, which was expanded as part of the office construction. The south end of the block is slated to be a 200-room hotel and a 340-unit residential building, and is current a half-block-long excavated hole.)
Monument executive vice president Russell Hines has told me that construction drawings for the the hotel and residential part of Half Street are being finalized, and construction will begin in late spring or early summer, with completion in late 2009 or early 2010. The entire block was excavated early in 2007 because it made economic sense to do it all at once, but that because of the need to complete the subway station improvements by Opening Day, the 55 M construction was "accelerated" and the hotel/residential part of the project is just now "catching up." In fact, Hines says, work on the office building is continuing, with the building "topping out" in the next week or so. (You can check the web cam for up-to-the-quarterhour progress.)
Hines also wanted to make clear that what Boswell called a "legal battle between two developers" over the Southeastern Bus Garage site is in fact litigation between Monument and WMATA, not Monument and Akridge.
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More posts: 55 M St., West Half St., Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St., Nationals Park
 

Boswell Looks at Everything Wrong By the Ballpark
Wednesday's Post has a column by Tom Boswell ("Nationals Park: Best of a Bad Lot") listing the myriad problems he sees with the ballpark and its surroundings, with Opening Day now just a month away. The Navy Yard subway station. The parking situation. The Florida Rock site ("an enormous and inexcusable 5.8-acre eyesore" that will be "sitting there all season, damaging the river views from all the ramps to the first base upper deck"). (He does mention that fences to obscure the view at ground level will be going up, which I posted about a few days ago.) The WASA site (which "would be the Most Unsightly Thing Near Any Big League Park if Florida Rock and Gravel hadn't already retired the trophy.") The Monument Half Street site, where he says "construction has stopped." The fact that city views are only available in the cheap seats.
But he ends with a stab at optimism: "Someday, the Anacostia riverfront will amaze us, just maybe not as soon as we hoped. When it comes to fulfilling huge civic dreams, what's a few years, more or less. In for a dime, in for a decade. "
On the other hand, the article confirms that the garages, which have long been a focal point of much complaining, will indeed be covered, as has long been shown in the renderings, with "league logos, replicas of the 'Washington All-Stars' from the right field scoreboard in RFK as well as colorful baseball-themed ads."
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More posts: Florida Rock, Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St., parking, staddis, Nationals Park, DC Water (WASA)
 

Washingtonian Articles, Signs, and More
The Southwest Freeway now says there's a ballpark in our midst, so it must be true! (And of course the Bike Route signs started telling us this last week.)
Other news of the morning:
* The March issue of Washingtonian (not yet available online, but now on newsstands) has two articles of possible interest. One is an overview of the ballpark itself. The other is called "Ballpark Living: Can the Nationals Stadium Do For an Up-and-Coming Waterfront Neighborhood What the Verizon Center did for Downtown DC?", in which yours truly gets a mention. It's mainly an overview of the neighborhood's offerings now and down the road, most of which should be no surprise to anyone visiting here on a regular basis. UPDATE, 2/26: The article on the ballpark is now available online, though the other one isn't there yet.
* Speaking of magazines with special ballpark offerings, I mentioned On Site magazine last week--I'm told it's available this week (bundled with the current issue of the Washington Business Journal) at CVS, Borders, and Barnes & Noble.
* In both of these magazines, there's an updated rendering of the Monument's 340-unit residential building slated to be finished by the end of 2009 on the northeast corner of Half and N, just across from the ballpark's Center Field Gate. Monument was kind enough to pass it along, and I've added it to my Monument Half Street page (scroll down past the 55 M stuff).
And, be sure to catch my new photos from inside the ballpark (both inside and INSIDE) if you haven't seen them.
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More posts: Monument Valley/Half St., staddis, Nationals Park
 
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