While I was away late last week, CSX finished the temporary decking on 3rd Street SE and reopened to two-way traffic the stretch between the north side of the freeway and I Street.

This means that if you're coming south from Capitol Hill, you can once again proceed under the freeway at 3rd Street, rather than having to either detour over to 4th Street or be forced onto the freeway ramp.

Speaking of temporary decks, it's now been announced that, as early as May 2, 7th Street SE will be closed at its intersection with Virginia Avenue for 2-3 weeks to build that deck.

Note: Virginia Avenue won't be closed at 7th. There will still be a single lane of eastbound traffic on Virginia through the 7th Street intersection, and traffic will still be able to turn to and from Virginia from the section of 7th north of Virginia--it's just the block of 7th between Virginia and L that will be losing any access to Virginia or points north. Detour signs for the closed section of 7th will send vehicles over to 8th Street.

There will be a path available for pedestrians to use 7th throughout the period that the street is closed.

Here's the CSX graphics about 7th Street, from this document:

Also, CSX has posted the presentation boards from its most recent quarterly open house. The next "Coffee with Chuck" will be on May 18, and the next quarterly open house on July 21.

Eleven months down, 31 to go....

There's also now plenty of windows on the Homewood Suites at 50 M, where there is clearly No Time To Lose if they are going to make that October 2016 opening date on the signage. And I bet there will be some windows on Insignia on M before too much longer.

I've also posted updated photos of Agora, ORE 82, the Bixby, and Dock 79, in addition to new shots at the links above.

And there's lots of Slider updates, too, a few of which are previewed below.

* PSA 106 PUBLIC SAFETY MEETING: The monthly meeting for Police Service Area 106 (which covers Near Southeast/Navy Yard/#NeCaBaRY) is scheduled for Wednesday, April 20, at 7 pm, at 200 I St. SE (government ID required to enter the building). MPD hosts these monthly meetings to address questions and concerns from the public about issues of safety in the community.

* DC WATER TOWN HALL: Sorry for the last-minute notice, but there is a DC Water Ward 6 Town Hall Meeting tonight (Tuesday, April 19) at 6:30 pm at Tyler Elementary School, 1001 G St., SE. DC Water Grand Poobah George Hawkins and Ward 6 councilmember Charles Allen are co-hosting the meeting to talk about current projects, billing rates, and more.

* WARD 6 BUDGET TOWN HALL: Speaking of town halls, Charles Allen is also hosting one on Thursday, April 21 on DC's proposed budget for FY17. It's at 6:30 pm at 645 H St., NE. "Before the Council votes on the budget, hear from Councilmember Allen on what's in it for Ward 6, where he's focused in the budget debate, and what comes next in budget decisions."

* TWO-WAY THIRD: CSX says that two-way traffic could return to 3rd Street north of I perhaps as early as Friday, April 22. Watch also in the next day or so for a shift in the current one-way flow onto the new bridge deck.

The current rate sheet shows studio units starting at $1,875, 1 BR/1 BA starting at just under $2,000, 1 BR/den starting at $2,740, 2 BR/1 BA at $2,885, and 2 BR/2 BA at $2,740. There are also additional parking fees, pet fees, amenity fees, and application fees.

They are currently expecting the first move-ins to happen somewhere mid-summer-ish.

The official web site has floor plans and additional info. The residential portion of the building is being managed by Kettler.

As for the building itself, the exterior is getting close to being finished, and when I was there I also saw the planks being laid for the extension of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail west of Diamond Teague Park, as you can see in the first photo below. The second photo gives a decent view of the rest of the walk that is under construction:

* JBG HALF STREET ZONING OK: On Monday night the Zoning Commission gave unanimous final approval to JBG's plans for its 420-unit apartment/condo/retail building on Half Street immediately north of Nats Park. Construction could get underway late this year (after baseball season).

* CRANE RESCUE: A construction worker at F1rst on 1st St. SE had to be rescued by firefighters via "high-angle rescue" on Tuesday. (Fox 5)

* DCBFIT OUT, CHURCH IN: I alas never got it posted here that the little DCBFit gym in the ground floor of the Courtyard Marriott/Capitol Hill Tower closed back in February. But now the space has a new tenant--the Waterfront Church, which has been operating out of the Courtyard since its founding in 2014.

* THE NEW FLAVORS ARE HERE!: Ice Cream Jubilee, fresh off its second-in-a-row Best Ice Cream in DC title in City Paper's Best of DC voting, announced new seasonal flavors on Tuesday: Chocolate Matzo Crack, Cherries Jubilee, Double Stout Caramel, and a Fig, Port, & Goat Cheese combo.

* TUNNEL OPEN HOUSE: Time for another Virginia Avenue Tunnel Quarterly Open House, on Thursday, April 14, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at the Courtyard Marriott at New Jersey and L. There's no formal presentations, but representatives of the project are on hand to provide updates and answer questions. Lots of lane-shifting going on these days as temporary bridge decks get built on 3rd, 8th, and 11th. And the intersection of 7th and Virginia is expected to close for about two weeks starting in early May to get its deck installed. CSX also expects to return 3rd Street to two-way traffic "near the end of April."

Those who read the JDLand comments got a sense a few weeks ago that something along these lines was coming when I posted this 99 M floor plan showing "new bar concept by Circa," but good to now have Open Road officially named.

According to WBJ, it's expected that the building will be finished in late 2017 (though it better start coming out of the ground pretty soon to meet that) and that the restaurants would open in mid-2018.

Open Road's Merrifield location has a pretty standard American Bar Food menu, plus lots of beer options.

And the 99 M location already has a placeholder web site!

This is the third restaurant announcement in recent days, joining news of Chix coming to Half Street this summer and The Salt Line coming to Dock 79 in 2017, and it occurred to me that people might be starting to lose track of what's in the pipeline. So, of course, I built a map.

And while it's neat to see 11 food options in the pipeline (and I didn't even include Nicoletta, because, well, they will need to re-earn my trust), it's also time to start thinking about the incredible amount of retail space in the pipeline.

Arris has about 17,000 square feet of space left to lease, Insignia on M has 11,000 sf, ORE 82 has 5,800 sf, 909 Half has "significant" ground-floor retail space, Homewood Suites has 4,800 sf, F1rst has about 21,000 sf left in not only its ground floor but the cute little two-story building it's planning at 1st and N, Dock 79 has about 12,000 sf remaining, and 1244 South Capitol will have about 26,000 sf. And even 99 M still has another 2,300 sf of space remaining.

That's well over 100,000 square feet of as-yet-unspoken-for space that will be available just within the next two years, in addition to the smattering of space still available in existing buildings.

And adding in just the JBG and Lynch Half Street projects north of Nats Park would double that number by, say, 2019, as each are billing about 60,000 sf of retail and could be getting underway late this year or early next year. Which is why I left a lot of room on my Future Food map--and I bet it'll become a Future Food and Retail map before long.

One would think there is a whole lot of competition behind the scenes for all of this space. It will be interesting to watch.

If you are wanting to wave farewell, be prepared to set your alarm--it's expected to start around 6 am. It will also require that the Douglass Bridge's span be raised rotated for it to pass through.

It was over a year ago that it was announced that the Barry would be leaving, with the Navy citing the ship's deteriorating condition along with the expectation of construction of a new fixed span Douglass Bridge leaving the Barry locked up river if it weren't moved beforehand.

(Would have been nice to get a credit for my photo of the Barry that the CNIC story used! Though now it's been replaced with a non-JDLand photo.)

At this point everyone probably knows everything they want or need to know about the plans and festivities, but I'll still do a quick link-filled rundown, because, well, even though I'm coming down with the same cold that clobbered me on Opening Day 2008 (symmetry!), the guilt would be too incapacitating to not post something.

Here's:

* Opening Day Promotions, Festivities, and Events At Nats Park

* What's New Inside the Ballpark | Outside the Ballpark

* How to Get to the Ballpark: WaPo Version | DDOT Version

As for what will be going on outside the ballpark before and after the game, here's the current lineup:

* Bluejacket Opening Day Fest 2016, 12 to 4 pm, 4th and Tingey Streets, SE.

* Due South Opening Day Pop-Up Beer Garden at Arris, 11 am to 5 pm., 1331 4th St., SE.

* Opening Day at the Fairgrounds/Bullpen, gates open at 11 am, 1201 Half St., SE.

* The Budweiser Clydesdales Procession, starting on 1st Street at 2:15 pm.

(Note that 106.7 The Fan's planned Opening Day party at Canal Park is now apparently re-scheduled for April 22, thanks to the weather forecast.)

Speaking of the Fairgrounds/Bullpen, I see that they are billing this as their final season, which has been my assumption but it's interesting to see it in black and white.

If you haven't been following along, you may not know that this is because it's likely that by the 2017 season construction will be underway on JBG's 420-unit condo/residential building with 65,000 square feet of retail on the south end of that block, which will change the look of Half Street pretty substantially, as seen here. Hard to set up row upon row of cornhole when a massive hole is being dug!

I may continue to update this post if any additional links come in, and/or be doing a lot of retweeting on Twitter. Or I may be in bed. Or both. (Have laptop, will blog.)

Feel free to use the comments as a game thread, should you wish to discuss actual on-field goings-on.

The big news at this point is that no lots have dropped out of the inventory (yet!), and one has returned--the lot on the northeast corner of 1st and N, SE, on the Spooky Park block, now a nicely paved and compact 220-space offering.

There will also apparently be "limited" parking in the new underground garage in Arris, on 4th Street south of Tingey.

Prices have nudged upward from last year, though--and if you are driving to Opening Day, throw a few extra $5 bills in your wallet, because home opener prices will likely be higher than what the map is showing.

Some cash lot parking attendants were quick to tell me Opening Day prices, and others had more of a "Well, we'll see what the market will bear" response, so instead of my listing them here and having them turn out to be wrong, better for you to just expect to pay $5 or $10 or $15 or even $20 more than "standard pricing" on Thursday and then be thrilled if you don't have to.

It's also possible that some lots (especially east of the stadium, in the Yards) may have slightly lower prices at points in April, when attendance isn't at its height.

In other words, consider this a guide to the general range of prices, while always expecting the possibility that prices may be different on any given day.

If you are driving to the ballpark, be aware that there are still lots of construction sites, and that in particular the Virginia Avenue Tunnel project immediately south of the Southeast Freeway between 2nd and 12th Streets, SE, has ripped the streets up pretty good, with various closures and shifts to watch out for.

Check out my Stadium Parking and Visiting Nats Park pages for additional info.

It's the restaurant's third location, and will be serving the same chicken and vegetarian dishes as at the other spots. Chix describes itself as "a green eatery that is committed to providing natural, healthy, delicious, affordable, quick, Latin-flavored meals in a casual environment." The press release says that all of Chix's chicken is "naturally raised, certified antibiotic free, hormone free, halal and locally sourced from Shenandoah Valley Organic Farms in Harrisonburg, Virginia." And their motto is "Eat Responsibly."

It will be open seven days a week, with dine-in, takeout, and delivery service for lunch and dinner.

The neighborhood is becoming quite the poultry destination, with Chix joining B-Dubs next door, Bonchon up the street, and Nando's Peri-Peri a few blocks away.

With its location immediately north of Nats Park, and with a view of (most of) the field, it will probably be a destination of interest--and a few occupants were caught on camera during MASN's broadcasts this weekend, and I captured MASN capturing them on camera, as you see above.

The menu (scroll down on the official site) features burgers and hot dog-type offerings along with "snacks and shareables." According to the Post's Going Out Guide, the beer lineup is Budweiser-ish, with Bud, Shock Top, and Goose Island. The space will also be available to rent for private events.

I took some photos up on the roof back in December, right when the hotel opened, so the area wasn't quite finished yet, and the low winter sun made for less-than-optimal peeking into the ballpark, but here are some of those images, until I get up there to replace them. (Note that there are also lovely views of the rest of the neighborhood--see more photos here.)

I also hear tell that the Hampton is looking to open a sidewalk cafe where alcohol would be served.

I've now added this to my What's New Outside the Ballpark page (if you need to catch up) and also my Food Map.

As you can see on the invitation graphic, Mr. Z himself is expected to be there, along with Dusty Baker, Mayor Bowser, and Ward 6 councilmember Charles Allen, among others.

"Fun and games" start at 8:30 am, with the ribbon cutting and first pitch at 10 am, and then the inaugural baseball game at 10:30 am. (Leaving plenty of time for Zimm and Dusty to get to the ballpark for the 4:05 pm game against the Marlins.)

If you're coming to the ballpark, here's what you'll see inside that's new, and what you'll see outside that's new, and my food map is available if you aren't quite remembering what's nearby.

My parking lot map is going to need some wandering on my part this weekend before it's considered fully active for 2016, but the big headline is that the Spooky Park lot at 1st and N will once again be available.

All of these links and more are available on my Visiting Nats Park page.

Note that, if you haven't been down to the neighborhood lately, you may want to familiarize yourself with the various traffic issues along Virginia Ave., SE, just south of the freeway, thanks to the tunnel reconstruction.

Tonight's exhibition is at 6:05 pm (with gates opening at 4:30 pm), and is a special event, with free tickets handed out to season ticket holders and "select members of the community," with seating limited to the lower bowl of the ballpark. Tickets are available while supplies last at the ballpark box office for a $10 donation to the Nationals Dream Foundation.

Saturday will be a "standard" exhibition game, with tickets on sale and gates opening at 10:30 am for a 12:05 pm first pitch.

The Bullpen at the Fairgrounds will be open for these two games, starting at 4 pm today and 10 am on Saturday, with live music, food, drinks, and of course cornhole.

There will be all manner of big happenings around the neighborhood tied to the April 7 home opener, but that's for another post.

If you see anything on the parking lots that would help me update the map (new lots open, old lots closed, prices, etc.), leave a comment here or tweet to @JDLand.

I can't believe this is the ninth season at this ballpark. Time flies.

Featuring a "New England-inspired menu in a casual and relaxed 3,500-square-foot space with ample outdoor dining and an outdoor riverfront bar," the menu from Chef Kyle Bailey will have seafood and a raw bar at its heart, with "a selection of straightforward New England classics, along with Bailey's own intepretations on the regional fare, and a few Chesapeake Bay-influenced specials."

The restaurant will also have a lineup of regional craft beers and a "creative cocktail program."

The Salt Line will join Whaley's, coming this spring, up river at the Lumber Shed, as seafood restaurants along the west bank of the Anacostia River. The name "Salt Line" apparently "pays homage to the delicate nature of DC's waterways, referring to the point in an estuary in which the water salinity transitions from salt to fresh water."

Dock 79 will have 305 rental units, and is expected to be finished later this year. It's on the site known in these parts as "Florida Rock," the old concrete plant footprint on the river just south of Nationals Park. It has 19,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space overall, facing both the Anacostia and the new plaza that is being built between it and Diamond Teague Park.

I am not immune, of course, but I also add a separate category: Here's what you will see that's new outside the ballpark. And it's considerably different than what you would remember if you haven't ventured to Near Southeast/Capitol Riverfront/Navy Yard/#NeCaBaRY since the end of the we-shall-not-speak-of-it 2015 season.

The short version? You'll see skeletons. Concrete skeletons. In all directions. In various stages of progress. Buildings are erupting in the blocks surrounding Nats Park the way that {insert tortured Bryce Harper-erupt-home runs reference here}.

Alas, none of them are precisely on the block of Half Street just north of the ballpark (wait 'til next year!), but this latest pulse in the neighborhood's transformation will be one more obvious to stadium-goers than in any year since the ballpark opened, resulting in close to 3,000 new residential units, 365 new hotel rooms, and 230,000 square feet of office space by the time these current projects all finish up in 2017.

And all of the activity means that there are lane closures and sidewalk closures to be on the lookout for, no matter which mode of conveyance you use to get to the stadium.

You can check out my quick-and-dirty map of what you'll be seeing, but should you want a typically wordy JDLand guided tour, read on:

* If you arrive via South Capitol Street, either from the north or the south, you'll be greeted with new apartment-buildings-to-be Dock 79 on the waterfront (below, left) and 909 Half (below, middle) just south of the freeway, along with a hole just north of Nats Parking Garage B that will soon sport a skeleton of its own, for the 1244 South Capitol Street apartment building. Then when you turn onto M Street you'll see the new Homewood Suites (below, right) rising up on the northeast corner of Half and M:

* If you take the subway and get out at New Jersey Avenue to avoid the crowds, you'll see the new Insignia on M apartment building (below, left) rising just behind the station entrance, and then you'll smartly cross M Street immediately to take advantage of new wide walkways (below, right) that should be completed soon to cut across the block formerly occupied by Spooky Building 213, all while noticing the skeletons just north of the ballpark that are the F1rst residential building and a new Residence Inn (with a hole where the 99 M office building will probably be its own skeleton by late in the season) .

* If you head down toward the ballpark from Capitol Hill, you'll be greeted with an entirely new vista on New Jersey Avenue, with the Agora and ORE 82 apartment buildings under construction and the Park Chelsea now all but finished (below, left). If you choose to use 3rd or 4th or 5th or 7th or 8th or 11th for your pre-game arrival or post-game departure, you'll have the pleasure of crossing the multi-block Big Dig that is the Virginia Avenue Tunnel expansion and reconstruction (below, middle)--be forewarned, lanes and sidewalks are shifted and will likely shift again during the season. On the flip side, there's now a new block of I Street open, between 2nd and New Jersey (below, right).

* If you decide to wander over to the Yards (you know, where Bluejacket is), you'll see that the Arris apartment building is finished and open, and the new marina at the Yards Park is well on its way to an opening in the coming months.

* NEW FOOD AND DRINK: As for new food and drink offerings, there aren't a lot of changes from the lineup at the end of last season (when Due South and Scarlet Oak snuck in under the wire). Buffalo Wild Wings will be the most obvious to most people, in its prime location between the Half Street Metro entrance and the ballpark Center Field Gate. The former Park Tavern at Canal Park is now "Il Parco," serving pizza and other Italian fare. And Barracks Row mainstay Las Placitas has now moved south of the freeway to 8th and L.

* SOON FOOD AND DRINK: As of this writing there are also three new ventures shooting for openings in May. Whaley's, a raw bar and restaurant from the DGS Delicatessen folks, will open in the Lumber Shed at the Yards in the space between Osteria Morini and Agua 301. In addition, Philz Coffee will be coming to the 300 block of Tingey Street, if you need your caffeine before gametime. And long-awaited beer garden The Brig will be opening at 8th and L.

What's not different from last year? Most of the food and drink establishments you likely frequented in 2015 are still around, including the Fairgrounds. (Though if you were a fan of Sizzlin' Express or Buzz Bakery, well, my condolences on your loss.) Also not different from last year is that there's still no "brew garden" immediately south of the ballpark, after Bardo's application for a liquor license was turned down.

If this post (and the accompanying What's New Since Last Season page, with all the details) seems like a messy hodge-podge, well, the neighborhood is pretty much a messy hodge-podge at the moment, too. But it was my fiduciary duty to provide this rundown.

* A post on the 2016 updates to my Stadium Parking Map will be coming soon, though there's already some early intel, including the official return of the lot at 1st and N.

The release today says that design/build proposals from the four teams are due this fall, and that DDOT expects to begin construction in the spring of 2017, and complete this first phase in 2020, but, well, We Shall See.

I absolutely cannot bear to write about this in any detail AGAIN, so if you haven't been keeping up with the plans to replace the existing 67-year-old bridge, please check out my post from August 2015, when it was announced that the project got its federal approval/record of decision, or my post from late 2014 about the supplemental EIS that presented some tweaks to the plan that had been stalled after a preferred alternative was identified back in 2011.

But if clicking on one of those links is more than you yourself can bear, I will just plagiarize the summary I wrote in August:

As you can see in the pilfered-from-DDOT graphic above, the new bridge will run immediately parallel and downriver of the existing bridge, with two new large traffic ovals on its approaches. There will also be a much-needed reconstruction of the I-295/Suitland Parkway interchange.

The bridge will have three travel lanes in each direction, along with 18-feet-wide pedestrian/bike paths on both the up-river and down-river edges of the bridge, which will be configured as one 8-foot-wide lane for pedestrians and a 10-foot-wide bidirectional bike path.

The eventual second phase of this overall "South Capitol Street Corridor Project" will be streetscape improvements to the north end of the street, similar to the spiffening that the blocks from N to Potomac received back in 2007 that give the street more of an "urban boulevard" feel. This will include a full redesign of the M Street intersection and a reconfiguration of South Capitol's interchange with I-395.

My South Capitol Street and South Capitol Street Bridge project pages are also good places to go for details.

I of course put together a (long!) photo gallery with shots from the tour, from the new Budweiser Terrace to the completely overhauled PNC Diamond Club to the expanded Shake Shack to the new food offerings.

But, while you really should look at the gallery, I'll hit a few high points here.

* Mike Isabella of Top Chef will now have two new offerings, Kapnos at the Park and Catchfly, with Greek dishes and southern food respectively.

* Shake Shack is expanding into the old El Verano Taqueria window, with Verano shifting to a cart.

* The Virginia Biscuit Company is getting a second outlet, up on the Gallery level at Section 315.

* Delta is now the team's official carrier, and so the President's Club area is now the Delta Sky 360 Club.

* The team will be offering limited packages to celebrate kids' birthdays at the park on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with pizza and cupcakes and tickets to the game.

* The Nats will now be running the Team Stores, which they say will result in "better prices, broader selection and 'exclusive styles.'"

* With Budweiser now taking over as Official Beer, the basic brew offerings will be Bud, Bud Light, Goose Island, Shock Top, Stella Artois, and Blue Point Toasted Lager. The old Scoreboard Walk will now be the Budweiser Terrace, and the Red Porch and Red Loft will be the Budweiser Brew House and Bud Light Loft. There will also be a "LIme-a-Rita Lookout" up on the gallery level.

* The PNC Diamond Club has been given a big overhaul, with a new mezzanine level that has its own seating and bar, plus much more seating and bar space on the first floor.

* Metal detectors will now be at all entrances.

* The only smoking pen will now be outside the First Base Gate, and it will require receiving a wrist band and coming back through the metal detectors once you've finished puffing.

There was a lot more than that, but I think those are the high points. And now to give you a few more photos while still telling you to go look at the whole gallery, which also includes plenty of additional information in the captions.

Coming later this week, a guide for What's New Outside the Ballpark, for those who haven't been back to visit since last season.

"the brig is on track to open in 30-60 days.

"Pavers are going in as are the 40 taps.

"More info and probably a big story after JD reads this.

"Bring your well behaved dogs here too.

"1007 8th Street SE at the corner of 8th and L."

And lo and behold, as my pictures from mere minutes ago attest, pavers are indeed going in, and temporary signage has appeared, and a new iron fence (currently still behind the existing cyclone fence).

There is still work to be done on the inside of the building, and then certificates of occupancy and health department approval, so I wouldn't carve any date in stone just yet, but the homestretch does appear to be in view.

The road to this point began all the way back in late 2010 with plans for a combination restaurant/beer garden in a new building right on the corner. It spent most of 2011 in historic preservation review, then returned in 2013 with a simplified design that eventually was approved, and a building permit was issued in November 2014, with construction getting underway in early 2015. The work proceeded, shall we say, slowly, with the service building's exterior looking complete in November, but by then it was, well, winter.

When it does open, perhaps it will be a good spot for the next JDLand Happy Hour.

"Meet up with friends and neighbors for conversation and a beer. Let Councilmember Allen know what's on your mind." And, who knows, maybe beer is on your mind, in more ways than one.

You can RSVP here.

This was Bardo's second attempt at a license for this site (having withdrawn the original application before a ruling was made), and a previous similar notion for the site was denied a liquor license for similar reasons back in 2013.

You can read the entire ruling here, but the gist of it is on page 2:

"While Bardo has presented a modified Application, the Board is not convinced that this new business plan alleviates the problems previously identified at this site. Specifically, the Board is still not convinced that an open air tavern has the capability to prevent unreasonable noise disturbances; that the neighborhood has a sufficient amount of parking; that Bardo can coexist or be included in the neighborhood's official traffic plan; that encouraging stadium attendees to cross Potomac Avenue, S.E., is safe; and that Bardo can exist without delaying or interfering with people and vehicles attempting to the leave Nationals Park after games or other events. Consequently, Board finds itself compelled to once again deny an application at this location."

However, this afternoon, there was this tweet:

In the meantime, construction continues on the Dock 79 apartment building just to the east of the Bardo footprint, with leasing about to start and move-ins coming later in 2016.

Is the writing now perhaps on the wall/bulkhead for the notion of an outdoor drinking/congregation establishment on this site?

UPDATE: The full transcript of the Feb. 10, 2016 hearing may be illuminating, as might be the first Bardo hearing in April of 2015, and perhaps the ruling rejecting the pre-Bardo venture back in 2013.