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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: Capper
See JDLand's Capper 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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The Last Days of Old Capper Seniors (With Views from the Roof)
As I posted a few days back, the old Capper Seniors building across from the Navy Yard is in its last days, and with hazmat abatement having been completed, the Housing Authority is on schedule to start demolition on Monday. And while I'm sure they had far better things to do, the powers that be were nice enough to escort me up to the roof for a few minutes of camera time to document the skyline from that vantage point. I also took a walk around the block for some last shots of the building, which has stood in this location since the 1950s.
You can see all of the day's photos here, with the overhead shots starting about a third of the way down the page. Remember as always that I use a somewhat wide-angle lens (a Canon Digital Rebel XT with an 18-55 lens for you shutterbugs), so you get to see more in the images at the expense of everything looking smaller and farther away than it really is.
After the demolition is done--it's expected to take two months--there will be a temporary surface parking lot installed. Eventually a 500,000-sq-ft office building by Forest City will rise on the southern half of the site, and hopefully they'll be nice enough to let me go up on that roof when it's done.
(And I must say that all these roof sojourns are wonderfully ironic, given that my legs go gooey if I even try to walk down stairs that don't have a handrail. So be assured I'm never as close to the roof's edge as it might look in some of these shots. I'm a total chicken.)
 

The Return of Capitol Quarter Camping
It has been observed that a camper has set up shop within the past week or so outside the Capitol Quarter sales center at 4th and L, even though no date has been announced for the next release of market-rate homes. Too bad the weeks of dry weather just gave out! Campers were of course a fixture at the site over the summer, when five house sites were sold each month. It will be interesting to see how long this intrepid soul (and presumably the cadre of friends helping save the camper's place "in line") will have to wait....
More posts: Capper, Capitol Quarter
 

Capper Apartments: Out with the Old, In With the New
After being vacant since the beginning of the year, the old Capper Seniors building at 601 L Street is in its final days, with demolition scheduled to begin the first week in November. Once the hazmat cleanup that's been going on is finished, the building, which opened in the late 1950s, will be brought down floor-by-floor (no Vegas-style implosion). I was inside the fences yesterday and between the raindrops got a few pictures of this building, though I hope to get some more before the final curtain.
At the same time the old building is coming down, the 139-unit new Capper Building #2 at 400 M Street is going to be opening its doors to residents. Originally designed as a building for low-income seniors, its profile has been expanded to also include renters who earn up to 60 percent of the area median income (from $38,000 for one person to $54,000 for a family of four). I was given a tour yesterday and got photos of the inside; the first floor has a community room with kitchenette, and laundry, computer, fitness, and conference rooms, and the landscaped interior courtyard also serves as a stormwater management system. The two-bedroom corner units at Fourth and M have some pretty nice views of The Yards and DOT (but I think they're all already spoken for). Twenty of the one-bedrooms and one of the two-bedrooms are for the mobility-impaired. A web site for the building will be launched soon, and there will be a rental office on-site. With Building 2's opening, there are 300 new affordable housing units now available in the Capper Hope VI redevelopment (with Capper Seniors #1 having opened late in 2006), with another 400 to come as mixed-income Capitol Quarter gets underway early next year, and the other mixed-income Capper apartment buildings planned for Second Street loom farther at some unannounced date in the future.
 

Ballpark and Beyond This Week -- Bridge EIS, Capper Lots
With DDOT having put out a press release in the past few hours alerting the media to the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the 11th Street Bridges, I can breathe a sigh of relief that I didn't screw up by having it be the focal point of my Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra. (It's easy to worry that you've done something wrong when news of a $465 million reconfiguration of one of the region's most important commuter routes hasn't been picked up by anyone else. Nice scoop for me, though!) No graphic went along with the column, though, so look at the images I posted here on Monday to understand the design alternative that's been chosen. Next steps would apparently be the actual design, although the EIS process took care of a lot of that, followed by construction.
My column also included the quick blurb about the bids being solicited to build the three temporary surface parking lots at Capper/Carrollsburg.
UPDATED to include link to press release.
More posts: 11th Street Bridges, Capper
 

Bids Being Solicited for Capper Surface Lots
Tucked deep in the classifieds of Thursday's and Friday's Washington Post were solicitations to build three temporary surface parking lots in the footprint of the old Capper/Carrollsburg public housing complex. The invitations for bids (here and here) are for 1) site grading/storm water systems/paving, and 2) lighting installation; proposals are due on Oct. 26 to DC Housing Enterprises (a subsidiary of the DC Housing Authority). The lots total nearly 234,000 square feet, and are located in two locations: the blocks bounded by 2nd, I, 3rd, and L, east of Canal Park, and the site of the old Capper Seniors building at Sixth and L, SE, which is scheduled to be torn down by the end of this year.
There will be somewhere between 670 and 720 spaces created in these three lots, which are being built to help ease the expected ballpark parking crunch. They were approved earlier this year under a zoning ruling that states the lots can last no more than five years; they will also be open for non-baseball use. The seniors building site is eventually going to be home to a 500,000-sq-ft office building by Forest City Enterprises, and the blocks lining Canal Park are destined to become mixed-income residential buildings as part of Capper/Carrollsburg's redevelopment.
UPDATED because I found the correct space count for the lots.
More posts: Capper, parking, Nationals Park
 

Still More New Photos
Yesterday morning, after traipsing down to check on the progress of the GPO building's demolition at The Yards, I took a fair number of pictures along Third and Fourth streets in the Capper/Capitol Quarter areas, since it was a gorgeous day and because it had been a while since I updated those photos in my Photo Archive. Here's the complete batch of yesterday's pictures, all on one page--it's mainly photos of a bunch of empty lots, but you can click on the icon under any image to see earlier photos from the same vantage point. There's also some shots of the GPO building, though they didn't seem to be doing any demo work yesterday.
(If you've come to JDLand fairly recently and aren't familiar with my Photo Archive, go give it a spin. You can choose any intersection in Near Southeast and see all the photos I've posted of that location over the past getting-close-to-five-years. And the icon you see on my project pages will show you the archive photos for the vantage point you're looking at. If you're needing to waste a couple of hours, this is the application for you!)
 

Oversight Hearing on Canal Park, and Other Council Events
With the August recess over, the city council is swinging back into action, and there's a number of Near Southeast-related hearings scheduled over the next few weeks. The most interesting one is a Committee on Economic Development public oversight hearing on "Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Transition of Projects on the Southwest Waterfront, Hill East, Poplar Point, Canal Park, and Kingman Island", scheduled for Oct. 1 at noon. The progress of Canal Park (or lack thereof) continues to be of great interest to Near Southeast residents, and perhaps by the time of this hearing there will be some movement on getting the school buses relocated. There's rumors afoot that the buses could be moved to a temporary lot once a long-term home is secured--and apparently there may soon be a contract before the city council approving a new permanent lot in Prince George's County.
Other council hearings over the next few weeks that touch on Near Southeast issues include a Sept. 26 Committee on Finance and Revenue public hearing on B17-0292, "Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg Public Improvements Revenue Bonds Approval Amendment Act of 2007" and a Sept. 24 Commitee on Economic Development public hearing on B17-0340, "National Capital Revitalization Corporation and Anacostia Waterfront Corporation Clarification Act of 2007".
There's also a Sept. 20 Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary public oversight roundtable on "Capital Projects and Space Needs for Public Safety Agencies," which I'm guessing may touch on the plans for a new home for the Metropolitan Police Department and whether the move to the old Post Plant at 225 Virginia Ave. is indeed called off--you may recall that one day after the Office of Property Management said that the move was canceled, the Post reported that that the mayor was saying he had made no decision one way or the other.
See my Upcoming Events Calendar for times and locations. Some of these may be available on DC Cable 13 and live webcast.
(Also, as an aside, the ANC 6D agenda for Monday night's meeting is now online.)

 

This Week's Ballpark and Beyond Column
My Ballpark and Beyond column in today's District Extra of the Post covers the recent departure of AnA Towing to make way for DRI's Square 696 development; the raze permits for the old Capper Seniors complex and the buildings just north of the stadium along First and N streets; and the planned opening in September of the new Spay and Neuter Center at 1001 L Street. (I can't believe I made it through a column without a single piece about parking!)
 

New Photos and News
After a week of days that were either overcast and drizzly or ridiculously hot and humid, today's sunny-and-warm profile gave me no choice but to venture out for a reconaissance mission. My report:
The masses of workers and the well-positioned fences make it nearly impossible to take photos of the current state of South Capitol Street, but I have added a decent photo to my Douglass Bridge makeover page showing the new South Capitol and Potomac intersection, which appears very close to being ready for traffic. Streetlights are in place, curbs have been built, paving has begun, and the historic globe streetlamps are installed all along the length of the bridge.
I also snuck a peek into the huge hole where Monument Realty's Half Street project is underway, and from N Street you can see what appears to be vertical construction is already underway at the bottom of the hole. It's along the M Street portion of the site, which will be home to the 55 M Street office building, which itself will contain the expanded entrance to the Navy Yard Metro station. Because that Metro work must be completed by Opening Day 2008, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they're already pouring concrete and working upward, eight months into construction. The office building itself and the rest of the Half Street Phase I won't be completed until 2009.
And I unexpectedly found Demolished Building entry #138, as the beige garage that has long sat on the northeast side of the Half and I Street intersection bit the dust today, which I'm sure JPI is happy to see, given that 70/100 I Street is growing like a weed right next door.
Speaking of 70/100 I, it got updated photos today, along with Onyx on First and 100 M Street. You can look at those project pages (and their accompanying expanded archives), or you can browse this page showing all photos I've posted from today, which includes a few new shots of Capper Building #2, which I believe is just minutes from opening. And I even finally added a photo of the "Starbucks Coming Soon" sign out in front of the DOT HQ, for the caffeine-deprived.
 

Raze Application Underway for Old Capper Seniors
Along with the Square 701 buildings mentioned yesterday, there are still a few buildings to be razed in Near Southeast (though not many, with 136 of them having already been demolished in the past four-plus years). None of them, however, are as big as the old Capper Seniors building at 601 L Street. All of its former residents have been moved out, and preparations are being made to bring down this building late this year, which will certainly be the most striking of all the demolitions I've watched. In the meantime, as you can see from the latest Approved Building Permit, interior demolition will be starting soon so that asbestos abatement can be taken care of before the building itself can be demolished. In its place there will eventually be a 500,000-sq-ft office building by Forest City, though no timeline has been announced; you can see a rendering of it on my old Capper Seniors page. In the interim, look for a surface parking lot to help ease the Nationals ballpark parking crunch. (Oh, and check out the new photo on that Stadium Transportation and Parking page. I just couldn't resist. I'm sorry.)
 
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