This isn't the only news of the day in regards to the ballpark food, as the team also announced new food partnerships: the Boston Beer Company will bring Sam Adams beers to the stadium, along with a new Sam Adams beer garden in May; Kayem Hot Dogs are now the "official frank of the Washington Nationals"; and Breyers is now the official ice cream. There's also changes to the existing concessions, including two portable Hard Times Cafe carts that will sell nachos. And a new "point of sale" operation that is supposed to speed up food sales and other transactions. (We shall see....!)

As for outside the ballpark, I peeked in on the progress at Das Bullpen, and while they were working very hard, it was hard to judge whether they'll be open by tomorrow morning. But the original Bullpen at Half and N will be opening at 10 am for all your late-morning beer-drinking needs. (Justin's Cafe will open at 10:30.) There was also work going on along Half Street, with Monument Realty finally replacing the Half Street advertising signage that for so long has declared "Coming 2009" with a more gentle "Coming Soon."

All this reconnaissance came as part of my short visit to NatsFest, and you can see a quick gallery of my photos from the event, none of which are terribly exciting and are more about little things here and there than the players or any of the activities. (I figured those sorts of photos would be a dime a dozen since every fan was toting a digital camera.) One change at the stadium visible in one of the photos (above the big honking new Jayson Werth banner) is that the red tent on top of the left-field garage that has been obscuring views of the Capitol for the past few years is now gone. Yay!

In other news, DDOT has announced that the Navy Yard Circulator's hours are indeed being extended beginning on April 1. From Friday through Sept. 30 (though could be continued in the FY12 city budget), the buses will run from 6 am to 9 pm weekdays and from 7 am to 9 pm on Saturdays, in addition to the extended hours on Nats game days. (They're supposed to post the 2011 Game Day Schedule, but it's not there quite yet.)

And, if you want more transit info before heading off to the ballpark, here's Metro's press release on its plans for extra trains, crowd monitoring, etc.

If I were in a generous mood, I could also link to today's front-page Washington Times story about how nothing is happening around the ballpark in terms of development, but if they are silly enough to dub the "new" Courtyard by Marriott (finished in 2006) as one of neighborhood's "signs of progress," then I'm not sure you need to read the rest. Besides, you can just read my roundup of what's changed since the end of last season to find out all you need to know.

We'll see what the weather does on Thursday--people seem to be sounding a bit more optimistic, but be aware that if there's rain, they'll most likely play Friday and not Thursday night.

UPDATED headline, tweaking "before June" to "by June."

* This is late notice (my bad), but on Thursday night (March 17) DC Water (aka WASA) is holding a Ward 6 Town Hall Meeting to talk about all manner of water- and sewer-related issues. Both Tommy Wells and George Hawkins (general manager of DC Water) will be there, and no doubt one of the topics of discussion will be the multi-billion-dollar Clean Rivers Project to fix the combined sewer overflows that result in sewage emptying into the Anacostia River. I have done a wonderful job of avoiding writing about this project, and I will do so for a while longer, except to note that it will eventually mean construction work along M Street east of 9th and along Tingey Street, but not before next spring (and continuing until 2017), so I have a little more time to get with the program. The town hall is from 6:30 to 8 pm at Watkins Elementary, 420 12th St. SE.

* Unfortunately, the DC Water town hall is scheduled at the exact same time as the "First Semi-Annual DC Circulator Public Forum," which is being held right in the neighborhood at the Courtyard by Marriott at New Jersey and L SE, and which is expected to include a discussion of a possible expansion of service on the Union Station-Navy Yard line, perhaps by expanding hours of operation to 9 pm Monday-Saturday during baseball season. (There is, however, no truth to the rumor that the route is going to be renamed the Dubliner-Molly Malone's line.)

In subsequent tweets over the past few days, the Circulator folks have expanded on that, saying that they'll be talking about extending the hours on the route until 9 pm Mondays through Saturdays during the baseball season (April-September), and that it may be paid for by ending the weekend-only service on the Mall. (Other tweets hint that the National Park Service may eventually "support" a Mall route using Madison and Jefferson drives.)

They asked for feedback: would there be support in the neighborhood for running the buses until 9 pm? Is there another service improvement you'd rather see in place of that?

* There's been a couple changes to the route of the Union Station-Navy Yard Circulator: "Service on this line has been streamlined near Columbus Circle in front of Union Station, providing a faster trip and allowing passengers to transfer between the Georgetown route and Navy Yard route on Massachusetts Avenue.Stops have also been added on Seward Square (Pennsylvania Avenue at 5th Street SE) on Capitol Hill. Because of construction to begin this fall on Columbus Circle, the stop at Delaware Avenue had to be discontinued for passenger safety."

* Adding to their growing Flickr cache of historic photos, DDOT has posted 23 photos from the construction of the Southeast/Southwest Freeway. They're a bit grainy (they look like they may have gotten water-splattered at some point), but most of them are from the area along Virginia Avenue near 6th Street, SE, so you'll see the old Capper Apartment buildings at 5th and Virginia, along with the Ellen Wilson projects that were north of Virginia. When I get some spare moments, I will of course be grabbing some of these shots to add to my own Historic Photos page (thank you, Creative Commons license!). This is wonderful of DDOT to be posting photos from their archive, and I hope they keep them coming. And other DC agencies with their own photo archives should take note.

* Metro has just released its information on getting to and from the ballpark: "Expect standing room only to/from Nationals games."

* WTOP writes about the two new economy lots for stadium parking; you might want to check my Stadium Parking map for a graphic that's a little clearer, and that also shows non-official cash lots. One item in the piece that I'm checking on, though--it says that piers at the Yards Park and will allow private boats to be docked there starting in July. But everything I've seen up to now has said that the piers and marina are to be built in the park's third phase, which isn't expected to come online until after 2012. Am waiting for a response from Forest City for clarity.

UPDATE: Forest City confirms that the piers are not coming this summer, contrary to what the article reports; they are planned for later phases.

* WAMU had two short pieces on Near Southeast on Monday: "Ballpark Hits Old Reputation Out of Field," and "Population Near Nationals Park Doubles in One Year," which now seems to have disappeared from their web site.

* Be prepared for another slew of stadium-related news stories later today, with the annual ballpark media day on the agenda. And the weather's nice for once!

There's also links to the live status updates for all the Circulator stops in Near Southeast and all the Metrobuses that run through the neighborhood (including the ones that stop at South Capitol and M). I even added links to the timetables to the two Maryland Transit Authority commuter buses that stop near the Navy Yard.

There's also a lightweight mobile version, if you're so inclined. The link to the full page is now at the top of the JDLand home page ("Bus/Rail Info") and in the right margin on the interior pages.

UPDATE: Thanks to the idea from commenter JT, you can now also click on the little tiny "M"s (if your eyes are good enough to see them!) on the map at right to get to the transit page.

* From the BID's newsletter (which I'm not finding on their redesigned web site), the latest update on residential leasing and sales for the second quarter of 2009: The buildings known as Axiom and Jefferson (at 70 and 100 I) and Onyx on First are at a combined 60 percent leased for the 960 units in the three buildings; 909 New Jersey (which opened in early April) has 25 percent of its 237 units leased. The Capitol Quarter townhouses are listed at 88 of 113 units sold (though I'm not sure how the public housing rental and for-sale units figure into that number), and Capitol Hill Tower is reported as being 80 percent sold. No numbers are reported for Velocity Condos, which according to a presentation by Michael Stevens last week is supposed to open in late August or September. All told, the BID says there are an estimated 1,863 residents in the Capitol Riverfront.

* A WBJ piece from today's print edition on Willco Cos.'s new $100 million fund says that the company "does not plan to dip into the fund for development projects in the pipeline, such as its 700,000-square-foot mixed-use project adjacent to Nationals Park, at Square 701, the intersection of M and First streets SE. That project is in pre-development mode right now without a major tenant; Willco doesn't expect to kick off construction until it sees 'signs of life in that neighborhood,' Goldblatt said." This lot is probably better known as Nats Parking Lot F, and the former home of Normandie Liquors and other small businesses.

* The Post and City Paper cover the second annual Mayor-vs-Council free-stadium-suite-tickets standoff, with City Paper posting the transcript of a particularly feisty exchange this morning between the Mayor and the media today.

With President Obama apparently not throwing out the first pitch after all, there might not be quite so much of a need to arrive early, but the Nats have still planned a lineup of special events, and are opening the Center Field Gate at 12:30 pm, with batting practice starting at 12:45. There will be a band playing on the new stage in the Center Field plaza and another one up on the Scoreboard Walk. Nats Extra, the MASN pregame show, will be broadcasting live from the Center Field plaza at 2 pm, and the official pre-game ceremonies (hosted by David Gregory of Meet the Press) will start at 2:35 pm. Nearby residents and office workers who won't be at the game should prepare themselves for the planned "flyover by four helicopters, a OH-58 Kiowa, two UH-1 Hueys and one UH-72 Lakota" during the National Anthem. The Nats have their own transportation page, at nationals.com/waytogo, though as I noted a few weeks ago, it still needs a bit of freshening for 2009 (the Metrobus page is still dedicated to the N22).

UPDATE: I'll add this on, since this is ballpark-related: the four parking lots at The Yards are available for baseball parking (just not as part of the official network of Nats lots this year), for either $25 or $20 per game; call or e-mail for more information. Other cash lots include the garage at 100 M and the small surface lot at 250 M and I believe the lots under 80 M and 1100 New Jersey, though I'm not 100% sure. The official Nats cash lot (where you can also buy single-game parking via their web site) is Lot U at 3rd and K, and costs $15 this year. In other words, if you want to drive down near the ballpark and pay cash for parking, you should be able to find a spot, though these lots may be more full during weekday afternoon games, since they're also used by commuters. I plan to update my Stadium Parking page soon.

The article also gives more details on the Akridge "block party" space at Half and N, mentions Artomatic, and talks about access via Circulator bus to the restaurants on Barracks Row.