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Near Southeast DC Past News Items
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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714 Blog Posts Since 2003
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No Art For You!
From the Post: "It sounded like a nice idea: Use the District's new baseball stadium to showcase art, livening up the place with bronze statues, ornate entrance gates, even brightly colored tile mosaic staircases. The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities yesterday gave city officials a preview of its plans to beautify the future ballpark, until now a cold slab of concrete and glass being built in a former industrial area near the Anacostia River in Southeast. [...] In this case, though, the arts commission wasn't even appealing for funds. Director Tony Gittens told the Sports and Entertainment Commission that he set aside $2 million for the project from the arts commission's budget. No matter, responded John Ross, a senior analyst for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and member of the sports commission board. The D.C. Council's $611 million cost cap bans additional public spending -- and the arts commission is funded with public dollars, Ross explained. 'You'll have to go back to the council,' Ross said." But maybe it could at least be more fun fighting over art than parking garages....
More posts: Nationals Park
 

Post Piece on Canal Park
Today's Post has an article about the planned Canal Park ("First New City Park in Years Will Recall Canal's Heyday"). There's no real news in the article, just a description of the plans for the park; no illustrations either, but of course my Canal Park page has plenty, including the most recent design drawing and a copy of the large concept submission document given to the Commission on Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission last month. The plan is to have it ready by Spring 2008, and hopefully the school buses will be off the site by mid-2007.
More posts: Canal Park
 

Alley-Closing-Palooza On Tap Again
The festival of legislation authorizing alley closings and street openings in Near Southeast fires up again tomorrow (Tuesday Dec. 5) with four bills coming before the city council's Committee of the Whole for referral to the full council for voting, although clearly little difficulty is expected since all four bills are also listed in the "First Reading on Proposed Bills" section of agenda of the legislative session scheduled to immediately follow. (For details on these bills, here's my description of their public hearings a few weeks back.) Then there's an additional alley closing (B16-0818, the east side of Square 701, the Cohen/Camalier/Welch land along 1st between M and N) scheduled for its final vote (having passed its first vote last month unanimously). And, while not an alley closing, there's also a final vote on B16-0929, the Capper PILOT funding bill (which also passed on on its first vote). If this schedule thrills you beyond measure, you can watch the council proceedings live beginning at 10 am on DC Cable Channel 13 or live webcast.
UPDATE, 12/6: The short of it: everything passed. Four of the alley bills still await their second reading and final vote, but the Willco Construction alley closing request at 1st and M is now completed (it was actually approved yesterday as emergency legislation), and the Capper PILOT funding bill passed on its second reading, too. (And thanks go to the city council staffers who help to guide me through this legislative maze.)
 

News About the Neighbors
From time to time, I mention goings-on close to Near Southeast that might be of interest, but aren't projects I'll be tracking. Here's a roundup from the past week or so, you'll probably want to ask Mr. Google for details, I'm just giving you the basics:
Today Mayor Williams officially announced the redevelopment of the old Waterside Mall at 4th and M SW, to be "transformed into a 2.5 million square foot mixed-use town center featuring office, residential and retail space including an improved, full-service grocery store for the neighborhood." Construction of the first phase is expected to begin in 2007.
Last week the Mayor announced that another delayed Southwest project is now moving forward, the redevelopment of the Randall School at Half and I, to be handled by Ballpark District bigwigs Monument Realty. "The Corcoran will develop the property into a mixed-use facility that will accommodate residential, museum and art school uses. The Corcoran will occupy 80,000 square feet that will be used for art education, art display, an art gallery, adult education, dance, theater, and community outreach. The residential portion of the development will include at least 200 units, at least 40 of which will be classified as affordable."
And the first proposals for the redevelopment of Poplar Point (the land directly across the Anacostia River from Florida Rock and the Southeast Federal Center) were presented last week by the AWC. There were two proposals, according to the Post: "one with a stadium and parking for the D.C. United soccer team and one without. Both plans show office, retail and residential development clustered in three neighborhood areas: near Good Hope Road SE to the east, W Street SE in the middle and Howard Road SE further west. The soccer field scenario shows the soccer field in place of the development near W Street, with a 4,000-space parking garage and a 500-room conference center and hotel. In addition to Major League Soccer games, the stadium would probably be used as a concert venue. [...] The preliminary plans call for 1,400 to 2,300 residential units -- 30 percent of which would be priced below market rate, to make them affordable to residents of the surrounding Anacostia neighborhoods -- two to four office buildings and one or two hotels." The plans are still months away from being final.
 

Updated Stadium Photos
Not exactly picture-perfect picture weather, but nonetheless I traipsed the perimeter of the stadium site today, and have posted 14 new photos in the Stadium Construction Gallery. On Friday Clark/Hunt/Smoot installed a second structural steel crane, so that steel can now be installed twice as fast over the next few months. Look for the views to begin changing even more dramatically....

More posts: Nationals Park
 

Satellite Comparisons, 2002 and 2005 (and 1988)
When I mentioned the other day that the current Google Maps satellite shots of Near Southeast are from 2002, a generous reader passed along a link to MapQuest, noting that its satellite images are more recent, and indeed they appear to be from early fall 2005. Of course, this immediately compelled me to build a new page comparing the two, with highlights on the 2005 map to show the difference. You might need a big monitor (or a high resolution) to be able to see the photos together without scrolling, but I didn't want to make them any smaller. (Click on the images to go to Google or MapQuest to zoom and scroll to your heart's content.) The difference from 2002 to 2005 is not overwhelmingly obvious to the untrained eye, but I bet the next time we get updated satellite shots the changes will leap off the screen. (And if any of you fine readers from the Geospatial Intelligence Agency [or anywhere else] have any pre-2000 satellite shots of Near Southeast that you could share without violating umpteen federal laws, I'd love to see them.) UPDATE: Links fixed. Head now screwed on straight.
UPDATE, 12/2: And, lo and behold, Microsoft's Terra Server has not-so-hi-res satellite images of the Hood from 1988, so now my Near Southeast From Above page has three images to compare (so you visitors from Wonkette should ask for extra credit).

More posts:
 

Upcoming Events
The Navy Yard Museum has just released its calendar of events for December, including another candlelight tour of the Navy Yard (on Dec. 9), and the usual array of lectures, concerts, and "For the Little Skipper" Events. And, on Dec. 13 Mayor-Elect Fenty will be holding his Ward 6 Transition Townhall Workshop, from 6:30 to 9 pm at the King Greenleaf Recreation Center at 201 N Street SW. I've added all of them to my own Upcoming Events Calendar.
More posts: Navy Yard
 

Capper Demolition Part III Moving Slowly; The End of the Cappers
The demolition of the final two blocks of Capper/Carrollsburg buildings got off to a quick start last week with two buildings gone almost immediately, but since then only one building (along K between 2nd and 3rd) has been worked on (now about 75% demolished), and it doesn't look like they've done any work on the site for the past two days. That still doesn't stop me from taking pictures, so there's an ever-so-incremental update to the Capper/Carrollsburg page. Thanks to the current Google Satellite images of Near Southeast still being from about 2002, plus this overhead shot I have from 1999, I was able to count that there were fifty Capper/Carrollsburg buildings in the late 1990s (ranging from the seven-story Capper Seniors building at 7th and M to the three other five-story apartment buildings along Virginia between 5th and 7th to the four-story blue-roofed buildings along 4th and 5th streets to the two-story dwellings along 2nd and 3rd); there are now six left (well, 6.25), and five of those will probably be gone within the next month, leaving only old Capper Seniors standing--but with its residents starting to be moved to the new Capper Seniors #1 soon and to Capper Seniors #2 in spring, it too will probably be gone before too many more months go by. (If you're wondering, the first Carrollsburg Dwellings were built in 1941, and the first of the Capper apartment buildings opened in 1958; old Capper Seniors was originally "all-ages" public housing, but was closed in 1973, then reopened in 1981 [six years behind schedule] as a seniors building.)
 

Near Southeast Features Roundup
Here's a few recent stories from some rather varied publications that reference Near Southeast in someway:
The Chesapeake Bay Journal has a long story about the Anacostia River ("There's Still Hope for the Anacostia In Spite of All the Strikes Against It") talking about the problems the Anacostia contends with (such as antiquated sewage systems resulting in untreated wastewater being dumped into the river, toxins that are giving fish tumors, and all the trash), then describes the efforts being made to clean up the river, including green roofs and other low-impact development possibilities (the DOT's green roof, the stadium's attempts to "be green") and the AWC's pledge to make the Anacostia a clean, healthy river.
It's not yet online (sacrilege!), but this month's Dwell magazine has a feature story on the Anacostia Waterfront ("Even if politics remain dirty, at least DC's ambitious Anacostia Waterfront will make the city a little cleaner").
The Financial Times Deutschland (JDLand scans the globe to bring you the news!) has a quick blurb detailing the city's "decade-long transformation from financial laughing-stock to boom town," mentioning specifically the rise of the Ballpark District.

 

Edge/Wet Try to Head to Northeast
The Washington Times (worried about potential undesired neighbors at its offices on New York Avenue) is reporting that the gay nightclubs Edge and Wet, which operated at Half and L until September, want to move to 2046 West Virginia Ave. NE, not far from where its old neighbor Club 55 is trying to move (3350 New York Ave.). ANC 5B is opposing both moves.
 

South Capitol Street/I-395 Ramp Closures Dec. 4-7
From DDOT: The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) advises motorists that the exit ramps from South Capitol Street to both I-395 northbound and southbound will be closed for maintenance from Monday December 4 through Thursday December 7 from 8 pm to 4 am. The below detour will be set-up to guide motorists:
  • Northbound I-395 traffic should continue north on South Capitol Street crossing under I-395. Traffic should then turn left onto Washington Avenue and turn left onto the ramp for northbound I-395 at D Street
  • Westbound I-395 traffic should continue north on South Capitol Street crossing under I-395. Traffic should then bear left onto Washington Avenue and turn left onto C Street. Traffic should then turn left onto Second Street and then bear left onto the ramp for Southbound I-395.
    • More posts: South Capitol St.
    		 

    Florida Rock Zoning Hearing
    The planned 1.1-million-sq-ft Florida Rock development at 1st and Potomac Avenues (across the street from the new Nationals ballpark) had another Zoning Commission hearing last night, to address some of the concerns expressed by the ZC at the first hearing in September, chief among them the design of the east end of the east office building (see map to orient yourself), which commissioners felt disrupted the line of sight to the Anacostia River from the stadium's grand staircase and viewing platforms. This section of the building--which will house a signficant portion of the project's retail offerings--has now been redesigned so that one will be able to see the Earth Conservation Corps pumphouse from the center of the staircase. This eastern end of the development also faces the new planned First Street Plaza, a 40,000-sq-ft public park to be placed at the terminus of First Street, to draw people to the riverfront. Florida Rock is proffering $3.7 million toward the design, construction and maintenance of this park that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation will develop (total cost estimated to be $15 million). The record is being held open for two more weeks, so look for a vote on the project at the January 8 meeting; I hope to have updated renderings showing the redesigned east building by that point. As for a timeline, Florida Rock estimates that construction on the first phase--the east office building--would begin in early 2008; there has been no announcement from the AWC as to any sort of timeline on the First Street Plaza (which presumably also depends on the acquiring of the WASA land on that site).
     

    Upcoming Zoning Hearings
    Just a reminder (in case you don't stay glued to my Calendar of Upcoming Events) that tomorrow (Monday Nov. 27) is the continuation of the Zoning Commission's hearing on Florida Rock's 2nd Stage PUD. It's available via live webcast starting at 6:30 pm. There are also three more Near Southeast ZC hearings in the next few weeks and months: on Dec. 7 is the zoning hearing for William C. Smith's 250 M Street office building, which could be interesting because the discussion at the July 10 ZC meeting about this project (starting on page 72 of this transcript) showed the ZC members to be, one could say, somewhat skeptical of the building's initial design. Then, on Jan. 11, Monument Realty will have its Half Street office / hotel / residential development zoning hearing. Finally, on Feb. 22, the Camden Development residential project at 1325 South Capitol Street will have its Capitol Gateway Overlay Review. Interested members of the public should note that there are mechanisms built into the zoning hearing process for public comment, and if you feel strongly one way or another about a project, this is a time when you should make yourself heard. Visit the Zoning Commission web site for additional details. (Of course, the time when I decide to highlight this public participation aspect of the zoning process is when only one of these four pending ZC hearings actually has a Public Hearing Notice--containing the instructions for participating--posted on the ZC calendar.)
     

    New Photos Here and There
    With the lovely weather, I've wandered out to take some photos around the Hood, and have posted a couple new ones here and there. First, I went to Anacostia Park and Poplar Point and took a bunch of new photos of the Near Southeast waterfront, and so now have my first shots of the stadium construction as seen from across the river. There's also now photos of the latest demolition at Capper/Carrollsburg (which also means two new entries on my Near SE's Demolished Buildings page), and a couple new shots of JPI's 70/100 I Street residential project (mainly showing the increasingly large hole in the ground). There's also a couple new photos on the Monument Realty/Half Street page as well as new additions and rejiggering (and a new waterfront shot) to the Ballpark District/More Photos page. Definitely look for the icon on these pages, because the additions are sprinkled throughout.
    More posts: 20 M, Capper, Nationals Park
    		 

    Akridge Pays $7 Million For 1st Street Land
    The DC Property Sales database runs about six weeks behind the calendar, so it's only now reporting that in late September the John Akridge Companies paid $7 million for six properties totalling 11,145 sq ft on the east side of First Street between K and L, currently home to an auto repair shop and an empty lot. Akridge has owned since the late 1980s an empty lot totalling 3,934 sq ft on this site, so they now own everything in this block of 1st Street except for the Market Deli land on the corner of 1st and L and the two car repair shops on the corner of 1st and K. No announcement so far as to any plans for this land. See my North of M map to orient yourself--and note that the photo at the top of the North of M page shows the block in question, with the two beige brick buildings at left being owned by the William Cohen/Willco Construction Company, and the red brick building and the empty lots to its right now owned by Akridge.
    		 

    Exxon Digging at South Capitol and I
    Reality is always a few days ahead of bureaucracy, so the Building Permits Feed is telling us what our eyes have already seen, that digging is going on at the closed Exxon station at South Capitol and I streets, excavating the underground gas storage tanks. I've heard no rumors about any impending development or sale of the land, but will of course post anything I hear (and if you know something about what's happening there, feel free to tell me). The station closed in May 2006, not long after its owner pleaded guilty to fraudulently double-billing government contractors more than $120,000 and was sentenced to 12-18 months in prison.
    More posts: South Capitol St.
    		 

    Capper Demolition Moves to Last "Ribbon"
    Today there is demolition being done on the two-story Capper buildings on the block bounded by 3rd, L, 2nd and K. It's the second-to-last remaining block of Capper structures (along with those one block to the north), and one would think these shouldn't take that long to demolish (famous last words). The three blocks between I and M and 2nd and 3rd that face the school bus lots/Canal Park site will eventually be home to three mixed-income apartment buildings totalling 550 units--a six-story 147-unit building between I and K, an 11-story 295-unit tower between K and L, and a 10-story 107-unit building south of L, on the north end of the block that will also be home to the 250 M Street office building. There has been no timeline announced for when construction on any of these three apartment buildings would begin.
    More posts: Capper
    		 

    Alley Closings and the Council - Schedule Change
    The four alley closings bills that had their public roundtables last week have now been added to the agenda for the Nov. 21 City Council Committee of the Whole session. This is a quick procedural step, where council officers report as to whether the bill is in good legal standing and whether the record is complete; if approved, the bills then are scheduled for their first readings, when bills can be debated by the council and amendments offered, and then voted on or tabled. Speaking of first readings, the fifth currently active Near Southeast alley closing bill (B16-0818, for the east side of Square 701, along First Street between M and N) will have its first reading and vote on Nov. 14.
    UPDATE, 11/20: The Nov. 21 session has been postponed to Dec. 5, so these four bills will have to wait a few extra days. Note that the Dec. 5 session is also scheduled to have second reading/final votes on two other bills of interest, the Square 701 (west side/Cohen family) alley closings bill and the Capper PILOT funding bill. See my Upcoming Events calendar as always for details.

     

    Developer Reaction to the Stadium Garages
    In the second part of today's Dana Hedgpeth column in the Post, various developers of projects near the stadium (Monument Realty, Faison, and Ron Cohen) are quoted about their feelings on the tortuous process that led to the aboveground parking garages at the baseball stadium. Said F. Russell Hines of Monument Realty, who owns much of the land directly across N Street: "It's an unfortunate solution[.] Our development would be better if there was complimentary retail and a mix of uses on the other side of N Street. It's not a disaster . . . but this is a significant setback[.] We spent months and months of great plans of what this area was going to look like with the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., and in the end it feels like it's every man for himself. We're going to do what we can to create an area where people come off the Metro and they walk along the streets, where there's restaurants and stores and a real experience." (I wonder if this could be interpreted as also a bit of a smack against the AWC's still-never-released "Ballpark District Master Plan" process.) One of Monument's principals, Jeffrey T. Neal, is quoted as saying "We have a vision for Half Street SE between M and N streets Southeast that has the potential to be one of the most exciting neighborhoods in the mid-Atlantic, but that vision won't happen if the process looks like the one that produced two parking garages[.] There's a better solution . . . than two parking garages. Let the private sector do it. There are zoning laws already in place." For balance, there's Ron Cohen, developer of Square 699N (bounded by Half, K, L, and 1st): It's not going to be good, bad or indifferent[.] "It would have been nice to have buildings lining the parking but there's so much activity and energy in that corridor that it doesn't make a heck of a difference one way or the other."
     

    New E-Mail Notification System for Near Southeast Updates
    You can now receive automated daily e-mails with the latest blog entries from here at the Near Southeast web site; if there were new entries posted the previous day, an e-mail will be sent early in the morning containing all of them. If there were no posts, no e-mails will be sent. You can also get your Near Southeast fix via RSS feed, especially now that RSS feeds are built into IE7 (you HAVE upgraded, right?); if you want to learn more about RSS (web) feeds, this Wikipedia entry is a good start. If you're a subscriber to my existing mailing list (which goes out more or less twice a week), be advised that that list's days may be numbered (and it's no longer accepting new subscriptions), and so you may need to move to the automated daily e-mails list or a feed reader (like Bloglines, or My Yahoo, or Google). Or you can just come visit the web site nine or 10 times a day, like the cool people do.

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