Let's start by peeking through some fences to look at the digging portion, where excavation is now underway at New Jersey/Canal and N/Tingey on the first office building to come to the Yards, which will be the headquarters for Chemonics International. (Yes, it's the project that chased the Trapeze School down to 5th Street.) The other two digging locations are Lerner's residential building at 1000 South Capitol and the CSX East site on New Jersey Avenue just south of the freeway, where a hotel and 800 units of residential will be coming. In order:

Next, we have three buildings that are above ground but not yet topped out. We'll start with the reconstruction of the Capper Seniors building at 5th and Virginia, which started just a smidge more than one year after the fire. With the pad not needing to be redone and the concrete-encased stairwells still standing, it isn't taking long for the wood-based construction to look familiar. (It is an odd thing to be watching the same building go up twice, 14 years apart--the first photo below was taken on Nov. 28, 2005, then after the fire in Sept. 2018 and March 2019, and now ).

The other skeletons are the new headquarters of the District Department of Transportation at 3rd and M Streets, which at this time of year can only been seen in sunlight for about one hour, from the west.. A few blocks away, on L Street between South Capitol and Half, the neighborhood's first "sliver" residential building (condos!) at 37 L is now a few floors away from its roof.

Beyond that we have a mere, oh, 12 additional projects that are topped out but not finished. Three of them are getting their faces put on (DC Crossing, Meridian on First, and One Hill South Two):

The rest have long since stopped looking particularly different while they plod toward completion, but there are updated photos on their project pages if you wish to see some. And yes, I'm looking at you, Thompson hotel and Estate apartments, Parc Riverside Phase 2, NAB HQ, Avidian, The Kelvin, Envy, the Garrett, and the Maren.

Now I'll turn my attention finally getting caught up on sliders. Wheeeee!

According to ANC 6D commissioner Meredith Fascett, DDOT is wanting to occupy its new space by early 2021, which would mean construction would need to start in early 2019.

This location is directly across from the US Department of Transportation, which means that I'll be forced to call this stretch the DOT block of M Street, SE. It also will share the block known as Square 769 with the currently under-construction mixed-income apartment building on the north end of the block.

There are ANC and zoning approvals to be had, including giving the okay to WC Smith's desire to lower the building height to nine stories (as, ahem, illustrated at right), cut back on the ground floor retail space, and drop the expected parking spaces to 177 on three underground levels (instead of 197 on four).

This building is actually part of the Capper-Carrollsburg PUD, and it was 10 years ago this month that the plan for an office building on this site received its preliminary zoning approvals. Then the Great Recession came along, building office buildings without substantial amounts of space pre-leased became a relic of another time, and WC Smith had to file for four two-year extensions to that zoning approval, the last in late 2016.

As for DDOT's current home, it was in May 2010 that the rumor first came out that the agency would be moving to 55 M, which was a big get for that building and for the neighborhood in general at the time.

And, this lot also is dear to my heart because it was the subject of one of the first photos I ever took in the neighborhood, with my film camera (with bad film in it, dammit) in the fall of 2000. And I thought when I first really started tracking the neighborhood in 2003 that it took what seemed to me to be for-eehhhhh-ver for that little gas station to be demolished, nine whole months after I started watching, one month after the photo at right was taken in August of that year. Little did I know.

* With this tweet (and the graphic at right), Cava is announcing that it is ready to open, starting with a "free community lunch" on Friday, Oct. 27, from noon to 2 pm. It's at 52 M Street between Half and Cushing, in the ground floor of the Homewood Suites (and next to Shake Shack).

* The Capitol Riverfront BID is announcing that the Canal Park ice rink is expected to have its grand opening on Friday, Nov. 17, from 5 to 8 pm. It may actually open to the public in the days before that, weather permitting, but We Shall See. There is a new operator this year, Tri-State Ice Management, which operates rinks at Pentagon Row, Glen Burnie, and Rockville. The BID's announcement says that the company with be "revitalizing and bolstering the programming at the ice rink," and that will be new skates, that "guarantee sharpness throughout the season." There's also a new web site, at CanalParkIceSkating.com. (No word on a new restaurant operator in the Il Parco space, however.)

Let's look at signs and entrances, starting first at F1rst and its Residence Inn, where it looks like the homestretch has been entered (click to enlarge, of course):

Then, let's go over to 4th Street, where the District Winery building continues to zip along. It's also where the Bower is now signed, as is Conte's space in Arris:

Then we'll double back westward (you're getting a sense for how far I walk on these excursions), taking a look at the new sidewalk on New Jersey Avenue in front of Insignia on M. Shake Shack's signage at the Homewood Suites, and the One Hill South entrance (very New York, isn't it). (I caught the Bethesda Bagels signage back in December, just in case you think I'm missing it.)

I even caught the view from the bridge of the new Bardo beer garden at Florida Rock, with a few hardy souls in attendance. Plus, views of both Agora on New Jersey Avenue (aka the Whole Foods Building) and 1221 Van (aka That Big Building On South Capitol Immediately North of the Ballpark):

All the links above to project pages have additional brand spanking new pics, and of course Before photos.

Next up, checking out holes in the ground, both current and coming soon.

* Also reported by WBJ, Cava Grill has signed a lease to open in the Homewood Suites on the northeast corner of Half and M, SE, which expectant taste buds may also know as the location-to-be for Shake Shack.

* Bardo says that its new riverfront brewery location on Potomac Avenue across from Nats Park "will open sporadically" between now and April, based on the weather, on a weekend-by-weekend basis.

(And, alas, this week has also seen one final farewell.)

My food map shows the full lineup of offerings, both open and announced. In addition to the coming-soons mentioned above, 2017 should see the opening of The Salt Line, All-Purpose, Bethesda Bagels, Slipstream, the Juice Laundry, and District Winery.

It's true! You can reserve a room and everything!

I hope to get in for a tour before too long, but I'm sure if you are wandering by you can poke your head into the public spaces.

As excited as denizens may be for the third hotel to open east of South Capitol (a mere 10 years after the first one, the Courtyard Marriott at New Jersey and L, and about a year after the Hampton Inn at Half and N), the real excitement will come sometime in 2017 when Shake Shack opens in Homewood's ground floor.

The next hotel won't be another 10 years down the road, however; the Residence Inn that is part of the F1rst development on 1st Street is expected to open early in 2017.

Residential tidbits:

* 1244 TO 1221: The JBG apartment project going up across N Street from Nats Park, known up to now as 1244 South Capitol, has been rechristened as 1221 Van Street (the little street on the building's east side, in case you think someone just made it up). There's now a web site to boot, announcing that leasing will begin in the summer of 2017, which is probably about when the building will be finished.

* NEW JERSEY SIDEWALKS: At some point in the recent past (I'm only just now seeing it), WC Smith built and opened the sidewalk along New Jersey in front of Agora, meaning that you can now walk not-in-the-street-or-behind-a-barrier from I Street all the way to the freeway on the east side of the street. Meanwhile, on the west side of New Jersey, the ORE82 sidewalk is looking close to being finished.

* ORE82 LEASING: Speaking of ORE82 (or ORE 82 or Ore82 or Ore 82 or 82 I or 801 New Jersey), it's now leasing, and even offering building tours. That official web site is here.

* JOULE: The 440-unit apartment building slated to be built upon the Half Street Hole just north of Nats Park is going to be called Joule, which I think I've mentioned before but shockingly people don't always remember every word I've written, so why not mention it again? That official web site is here, with the spiffy marketing brochure for the up-to-70,000-square-feet-of-retail here. Mention is made of a first phase delivering by summer 2018.

Non-residential tidbits:

* DC WATER HQ: The first permit for construction of the new DC Water headquarters on the banks of the Anacostia has been approved, for exvacation and site work.

* 250 M STILL WAITING: WC Smith, developers of the long-planned office building at 250 M Street, have filed with the Zoning Commission a request for another two-year extension to the building's approved PUD, noting that "most of the same factors and circumstances still exist in the Capitol Riverfront office submarket today" that were cited to receive extensions in 2010, 2012, and 2014, namely the tightness of the leasing market and the requirement that the building be 70 percent pre-leased in order to secure construction funding. (This is the building that would front M Street on the south end of the same block where DCHA is expecting to start soon on its next apartment building.) WC Smith appears to remain committed to this being an office building, citing the abundance of residential buildings and the need for the neighborhood to be a "truly mixed-use community."

* The first sign has been hoisted at the Homewood Suites at 50 M St., on the north side.

* Toll Brothers has put up fence signage announcing the second phase of Parc Riverside on Half between K and L, with a delivery date of 2018; We Shall See.

* WC Smith has put up a sign at 2nd and I that gives a first peek at The Garrett, the third apartment building that will fill out "The Collective," aka the block where the Park Chelsea already stands and where Agora (the Whole Foods building) is already under construction. (I don't have a project page for the Garrett yet--awaiting the results of my begging for an electronic version of the rendering on the sign.)

Also:

* I got to see the Insignia on M crane dismantled, though my attempts to get actual video with the new JDLand camera were unsuccessful (I need to RTFM, clearly).

* The Trapeze School building is now a little more decorated.

* Time is not being wasted on vertical construction of the apartment project at 1244 South Capitol, where the skeleton is now four stories high.

Finally, for the fun of it, here's photos of ORE 82 and Agora taken from the Southeast Freeway. Don't try this at home--leave it to those who are willing to lean out the passenger window of a car speeding down the road while holding a very expensive camera. Don't ever say I don't do nothing for you.

There's also updated photos of Insignia, F1rst and 909 Half, should you wish to peruse them.

The 2,800-square-foot space will of course be only about two blocks away from the neighborhood's other Shake Shack, but this new one will not require a ticket to a baseball game to get your fix of burgers, crinkle fries, shake-like concretes, and other delicacies.

All of that is just a time-wasting intro to a roundup of the progress photos I took.

Dock 79 is getting pretty close to the finish line, with the sidewalk along Potomac Avenue now open and work proceeding on the open plaza to its east. (Yes, those are sculptures.) There's also emerging placeholding signage for The Salt Line in advance of its 2017 opening.

ORE 82 now has some completed balconies overlooking New Jersey Avenue and I Street, but mainly I just wanted the excuse to post my rather striking shot (below left). And speaking of red buildings, the Homewood Suites at 50 M is making steady progress as well.

The walls of windows at 909 Half Street are making for some interesting reflections, not only from the reflected bright blue sky but from the patterns of recesses and bump-outs, as well as the windows that are left open to presumably give the poor workers a little air.

If you stand at New Jersey and M, you can get good views of Insignia on M to your north and the F1rst apartment/Residence Inn hotel project to your west.

Then we have the even newer neighbors, the ones who we can't quite see just yet, although the 1244 South Capitol apartment building now has one floor above ground level. (I admit, this is one I am looking forward to watching rise up.) Then there's the office building at 99 M, which seems to be slooooowly getting ready for vertical construction, though a peek down in the hole indicates that a skeleton is still some weeks away.

I also took photos of the Bixby, but nothing much is changing on the outside there. And I only took morning-light photos, which means I don't have any good ones of Agora, unless you like looking at its backside. (So to speak.)

Then there's Parcel O at the Yards, where one condo and one apartment building are to be built. Fences are up, and there is some infrastructure work going on along with breaking up the concrete pad that the trapeze school stood on until last year. I believe the shoring, sheeting, and excavation permit is approved, but whether the true Digging of the Dirt is underway, well, We Shall See.

There are more new photos than just the ones above--follow the links for additional shots, plus I've also updated a bunch of before-and-after sliders. And maybe soon I'll get out in the afternoon light to get photos of the western side of all of these projects--with a new camera!

(If you're thinking that these photos don't look that blurry, it's really more on the edges of the shots where the problem lies, plus I do some sharpening of all photos after I size them down for posting.)