So, I can now report that the 2012 tax assessment total for Near Southeast is: $6.06 billion. Since the final assessments for 2011 came in at about $5.81 billion, 2012's number is a $248 million increase for actual assessments year-over-year.

There were 15 properties that received reductions for their 2012 bills, totaling about $148 million. The big property owners managed a few hefty cuts, with JBG's US Department of Transportation building leading the way with a $47.7 million reduction to just under $615 million, followed by CSX's empty lots near the freeway north of I Street getting a $46.3 million haircut down to $66.2 million. Many of the other shiny new-ish buildings of the neighborhood also got their tallies reduced, such as apartment buildings 70/100 I and 909 New Jersey and office buildings 20 M, 55 M, 225 Virginia, and Maritime Plaza I and II.

But these reductions were offset by $216 million in upward revisions. Most of this is thanks to 1015 Half Street finally being completed, taking that parcel's assessment from last year's $41.1 million to just a hair under $144 million. Three other buildings (80 M, 100 M, and 300 M) received higher final assessments as well. Plus, 32 townhouses in Capitol Quarter came onto the rolls as completed buildings, bringing just under $14 million in new tax revenue. (Yes, yes, PILOT/payment in lieu of taxes--don't stop me when I'm on a roll.)

And, because people always want to know, the ballpark's assessment for 2012 remains the smidgiest smidge under $1 billion, unchanged from 2011, at $999,982,800.

Alas, I can't give good year-to-year comparison numbers on final assessments in previous years because I didn't really grasp this whole revision thing until last year (oops), but I can say that proposed assessments were just a mite over $6 billion in both 2010 and 2011, after having been at $4.47 billion in 2009. My March post has the year-by-year proposed assessed values for the neighborhood, if you want those numbers.

If you feel like digging deeper (since you don't pay me enough to just post all my numbers for you to use), here's the the current assessments database, which you can search yourself. Tune in this March to see what the city proposes for 2013 values, and then in January for what the values really end up being....

I've pulled together a chart of the assessed values of the neighborhoods' shiny new/ish office buildings and non-DCHA non-condo multi-unit residential buildings, showing their 2011 proposed assessment, along with the final 2011 number and today's new 2012 proposed number. The proposed 2012 valuations for this specific sub-group of properties totals $1.77 billion, which is up a tad from the $1.75 billion proposed for 2010--but which ended up being dropped to a $1.58 billion final 2011 valuation after appeals.

The expansion in the neighborhood's tax base in terms of new residents has become clear as well: Looking at the numbers for the Capitol Quarter and Velocity condos parcels: in 2007, before construction got underway, they were assessed at around $92 million; for 2012, the proposed value is around $282 million. (It should be noted that Capitol Quarter's taxes don't go into the general fund, because owners there actually are governed by a Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT] structure that uses the tax proceeds to pay down the debt on the bonds used to finance the development.)

As for the number everyone always wants to know about: Nationals Park remains valued at $999,982,800, unchanged since the first time the ballpark's assessment appeared, back in 2009.

Yearly Near Southeast Proposed Assessments 2002: $221M * 2003: $428M * 2004: $642M 2005: $771M 2006: $896M * 2007: $1.78B 2008: $2.54B 2009: $4.47B 2010: $6.01B 2011: $6.00B 2012: $5.99B * Includes a mix of proposed and revised assessments

And it's likely that the neighborhood will continue to be home to the most valuable privately held property in the city, as the US Department of Transportation HQ has been assessed at $662.7 million, about $73 million higher than the final 2011 number that made it the most valuable property in the city in 2010, according to WBJ.

I keep a database of neighborhood assessments going back to 2001, although it only took about eight years for me to grasp the concept that the proposed numbers released in March aren't always the final ones, so it was just in 2010 that I started tracking both proposed and year-end numbers. (Though it must be said that during the Bubble Years, landowners weren't quite so vigorous about challenging their assessments.) Plus for a long time I got the years wrong when referencing: numbers posted by the city in one year are labeled as being the proposed/actual value for the following year. And some tax squares inside my strict Near Southeast boundaries escaped my attention for a few years early on. But I don't think the numbers are so out-of-whack that they can't be compared in a general way, as long as you keep the caveats in mind; with that admonition, check out the table at right for the yearly numbers.

And, of course, it should be noted that since large portions of the neighborhood's land is owned by the Feds (*cough*Navy Yard*cough*), there aren't taxes being paid on every dime of these assessment numbers.

If your envelope hasn't already arrived, or if you want to see how your number stacks up against your neighbors, you can search the assessments database yourself.

But, wait! As I dug a little further, I found a flaw in my methodology that hadn't quite occurred to me before this year (though it probably hadn't been an issue too often before now): 11 of the big commercial buildings in Near Southeast had apparently appealed their initial 2010 assessments (sent out last year), lowering their tax bills by between 2 percent and 38 percent, from a combined $1.13 billion in the initial assessments to $909.36 million post-appeals. (Ten other buildings are showing no change in those assessments, and one--909 New Jersey--actually saw an 8 percent bump upwards, which was probably more of a function of the initial estimate being from before the building was completed.)

Taking these changes into account, the total assessments for 2010 for the neighborhood is closer to $5.88 billion, meaning that tally of the 2011 numbers just released of $5.89 billion would actually be a 1.9 percent increase. Except that I imagine that some property owners will be appealing again (since some of the 2011 numbers go right back to the original 2010 numbers that were appealed), and the $5.99 billion number will come down again.

Not all property in the neighborhood took a hit--with the opening of the first portions of Capitol Quarter, the blocks between Fourth and Fifth Street saw an increased value of $33 million, and the completion of Velocity raised the assessed value of its block from $99 million to $162 million.

And, since everyone will want to know: the behemoth of the area--Nationals Park--has an assessment unchanged from last year, at just a hair under $1 billion.

I'll check the numbers again later this year to see how many proposed 2011 assessments get altered.

Here's a quick table of the big properties that saw their 2010 assessments change from the original number released early in 2009:

Property	Original 2010	Revised 2010	% Diff.	Proposed 2011
300 M	$132.26M	$82.00M	-38%	$74.69M
55 M	$162.60M	$110.66M	-32%	$110.66M
80 M	$124.08M	$92.75M	-25%	$111.27M
100 M	$90.98M	$68.18M	-25%	$90.98M
1201 M (Martime #1)	$87.97M	$72.57M	-18%	$64.74M
1100 NJ	$142.79M	$121.40M	-15%	$139.16M
100 I	$85.20M	$73.00M	-14%	$85.20M
70 I	$132.28M	$119.00M	-10%	$132.28M
1000 NJ *	$84.46M	$81.06M	-4%	$79.75M
770 M (Blue Castle)	$23.93M	$23.17M	-3%	$23.93M
1220 12th (Maritime #2)	$66.99M	$65.57M	-2%	$47.57M
909 NJ	$68.05M	$73.58M	8%	$79.93M
* This is for the residential portion of Capitol Hill Tower; the 2010 assessments on the Courtyard by Marriott show no change.

A chunk of that change is coming from the first official assessment of Nationals Park, valued at $999,982,800 (geez, Mr. Tax Assessor, just round it to $1 billion and be done with it), a rise of nearly $650 million from the assessed value of just the land last year. Blocks that saw projects get completed in 2008 (70/100 I, 100 M and Onyx, and 55 M) got hefty bumps in their valuations, while other spots (20 M, the Capper blocks, USDOT, Maritime Plaza) saw their assessments go down.

I created a report comparing 2008 and 2009's numbers overall and by block, though I wouldn't swear to the exactness of each number down to the penny (but they're probably close enough).

As for the trend of the overall valuation of Near Southeast over the past nine years, it's still *up*:

2001: $221,096,652

2002: $428,312,487

2003: $640,209,280

2004: $771,006,345

2005: $894,123,520

2006: $1,781,481,650

2007: $2,539,618,280

2008: $4,467,137,880

2009: $6,004,334,490

UPDATE: Here's a link to a map of the square numbers, in case a bit more visual assistance would be helpful.