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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: Canal Park
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99 M ('18)
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District Winery ('17)
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225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
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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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What's the Deal With: Canal Park (Again)
Yes, it's time once again for What's the Deal With.... Canal Park? Now that the ballpark's open and people have stopped asking me about the baseball that was originally planned for the roof of the Red Loft, I can safely say that there is no question I receive more often than this one. Here's the latest:
Over the past few months, the Canal Park Development Association has been resurrected, and is now being led by Chris VanArsdale, a local lawyer-turned-green-developer. An agreement is being worked on with the city that will allow the CPDA to take on moving the park forward, a task that ended up in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development after the demise of the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation.
Of course, there will be no moving forward of the park until the dang buses are gone. The timeline being put forward by DMPED is now "December or January" for the departure of the buses, since a new location has been found (*cough*DC Village*cough*) but a lot still must be built. (It's at this point that I'm always required mention that it was in October 2003 when I first heard the city had been given 90 days to get the buses off the park site.) The park's blocks would then be graded and temporary sod planted until the park itself is built.
So, when will the park actually be completed? You didn't actually expect anyone to tell me that, did you? However, indications are that once the license agreement between the CPDA and the city is finished, we'll get a better sense for what's left to be done and when it all could happen.
In the meantime, while twiddling your thumbs waiting for the next news tidbit, take a look at the designs and plans for the park, which came as the result of a 2004 design competition held by the city. Are they still holding up? Discuss. (Hey, it's summer, I've got to do something to perk up the energy around here.)
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Late Night Roundup, and Some Wondering
* Sorry I missed this until now: the Post reported that on Saturday evening "[a] motorcycle was headed west on M Street SE about 6:30 p.m. when a car traveling south on Seventh Street began to turn onto M Street. The car and motorcycle collided, and the motorcyclist was fatally injured, police said."
* The Post's Grounds Crew blog has only now discovered that there's a Five Guys just around the corner from the Navy Yard subway station east entrance (on Second Street north of M, if you haven't discovered it yet, either).
* The PSA 105 mailing list announced yesterday that they are having a "Summer of Safety Ice Cream Social" at Capitol Hill Tower "to show unity with the citizens of Capitol Hill and the Metropolitan Police Department by sharing some nice and cool ice cream while sharing information." The message said that the social is from 2 to 5 pm on June 25. A Wednesday afternoon? I wrote asking for confirmation, but haven't heard back. Anyone out there with the {ahem} scoop?
* Washington City Paper and WBJ both note layoffs at MacFarlane Partners through the prism of how it might affect the drive to put a soccer stadium at Poplar Point; I see the news and wonder about the capital that MacFarlane is supposed to be investing in both The Yards and Monument Realty's Half Street.
* Is the report in the July Southwester that Monument Realty and the Corcoran Gallery have received zoning approval to delay to 2015 (from 2011) their planned redevelopment of the the Randall School site at Half and I SW something to wonder about, too?
* And, while I'm heading off the reservation with all of this wondering, did anyone else read this Post story on fuel prices causing problems for school districts' transportation budgets and ponder whether buses would have to drive farther to and from their daily routes from a parking lot at DC Village as compared to one at Second and M, SE?
 

What's the Deal With: Canal Park
(Yay! Non-ballpark news!) The *most* asked question at JDLand.com these days (apart from "what happened to the baseball on top of the outfield restaurant" and "can you start covering Southwest") is What's the Deal With Canal Park, the three-block long new public park planned for the strip along Second Street between I and M, which for years has been the home to DC Public School buses. This project was on the boards when I started this site in 2003, and yet has had a hard time getting going, despite a design completed years ago by landscape architects Gustafson, Guthrie, and Nichol Ltd. After originally being under the purview of the defunct Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, the park is now the responsibility of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.
After spending some time explaining what the heck JDLand.com is ("uhhhh, it's, like, this web site, and stuff?"), I was able to get a general update, which jibes with the rumors that have been flying for weeks. A relocation site for the school buses has indeed been found (though they won't say where), but some construction work has to first be done at this undisclosed location to prepare it. It's expected that the buses will be moved there "by the fall," with construction on the park starting soon after, lasting about 12 months. The park is a "top priority" for the city, I was told.
Will it happen? I guess we shall see....
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A Thought on Moving the Canal Park School Buses
A thought: With more than a dozen DC public schools closing at the end of this school year, and the Fenty administration stating that they have no intention of selling off the buildings, wouldn't one or two of them make a good location for a school bus parking lot? Or, at the very least, a better location than some of the locations currently being used?
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Community Papers, Canal Park Connector, Other Quick Tidbits
This morning's quick hits:
* The Voice of the Hill has posted a piece on its web site surveying the community reaction to the 11th Street Bridges EIS, while the December issue of the Hill Rag looks at the project from the perspective of Hill East.
* The Hill Rag also has a recap of the November ANC 6D meeting, which focused mainly on Southwest issues, though there is a small blurb about the ballpark liquor license (it sounds like there were some concerns about the 8 am to 3 am time frame listed on the application).
* Meanwhile, the December Southwester reports on the Oct. 3 groundbreaking at The Yards by reprinting much of the Forest City press release on the project.
* Out of my realm, but I'll still pass along that the four short-listed development teams will be presenting their proposals for Poplar Point at Dec. 12 at 6:30 pm at Birney Elementary School, 2501 Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave., SE.
* I'm watching with interest a public space permit application this week by Cofeld LLC for 1271 First Street, which is the lot on the northwest corner of First and N, which had a raze permit filed for it in June. Hints of demolition? We'll see if the permit data, when approved, tell us anything further.
* UPDATE: One more quickie to add. The Garfield Park-Canal Park Connector Project has posted notes and summaries of discussions at their Oct. 24 workshop. Topic areas discussed included Biking and Walking, Under the Freeway, Public Art, Urban landscape, and History & Neighborhood Heritage.
 

The Near Southeast Traveling Road Show, On Demand
During my poking around on the DC Office of Cable Television web site recently, I discovered that many of the groundbreakings and other events in Near Southeast this year that have been broadcast on the city's cable channel 16 are also available On Demand; the same goes for council hearings, available on Channel 13's On Demand page. (I kinda sorta knew that the On Demand stuff was there, but when I checked it many moons ago, it didn't seem quite so complete, so I hadn't looked back in on it for a while.)
So if you've missed any of the following four-star telecasts from 2007, you can watch them at your leisure:
* The July bill-signing ceremony at the Earth Conservations Corps pumphouse where the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and the National Capital Revitalization Corporation were officially abolished;
* JPI's June "groundbreaking" for its four projects along I Street ("Capitol Yards");
* The January groundbreaking marking the start of the Navy Yard Metro renovation and Monument's Half Street project;
* And pretty much any ceremony anywhere in the city the mayor was at since the beginning of the year, plus a lot of other presentations and events. (Be sure not to miss the Reporters' Roundtable "Snitching Debate.") Check the dropdown boxes on the On Demand page for the offerings. I've added the above links to all of the various project pages in case you're desperate to find them again someday.
Two of the most recent shindigs haven't gotten added to the lineup yet--the Oct. 22 kickoff ceremony for the Capitol Riverfront BID (in which you can find out where the "Traveling Roadshow" moniker originated), and the mayor's remarks at the Nov. 13 turf unveiling at the ballpark. Ditto with the Waterside Mall Demolition program, which is currently playing on Channel 16 but hasn't yet made it to On Demand. But perhaps they'll show up eventually.
 

Garfield Park - Canal Park Connector Meeting Wednesday
One more reminder that Wednesday night (Oct. 24) there is a public meeting on the project to create a more appealing connection between Garfield Park north of the Southeast Freeway and the to-be-built-hopefully-eventually Canal Park, one block to the freeway's south. The meeting is from 6 to 9 pm at St. Peter's Catholic Church at 2nd and C streets, SE. Here's the project web site, for more information, along with a DDOT press release on the meeting.
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Reminder on Garfield Park-Canal Park Connector Meeting
I posted about this a few weeks ago, but I'll pass along this DDOT press release from today as a reminder that on October 24 there is a public meeting on the project to create a more appealing connection between Garfield Park north of the Southeast Freeway and the to-be-built-hopefully-eventually Canal Park, one block to the freeway's south. The meeting is from 6 to 9 pm at St. Peter's Catholic Church at 2nd and C streets, SE. Here's the project web site, for more information.
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Council Oversight Hearing: I'll Get Back to You on That
DC council member Kwame Brown's Committee on Economic Development had an oversight hearing this afternoon to get information from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development on the transition of projects on the Southwest Waterfront, Hill East, Poplar Point, Canal Park, and Kingman Island. The majority of the hearing time was spent on the three large projects, but since my hard-and-fast coverage boundaries don't include any of them, I'll just pass along what was said about the current status of Canal Park.
In her opening remarks, DMPED chief operating officer Valerie Santos Young gave a brief description of the 1.8-acre park project, in particular its sustainable design and stormwater management aspects, which will help "minimize discharge of polluted water" into the Anacostia River. She said that her office is (still) working with the DC Public Schools transit administrator to relocate the 100 buses parked on the southern two blocks of the site, and that the Deputy Mayor's office is aware of the "considerable interest" from residents in seeing the park built. "We have achieved some recent milestones to do just that," she said in closing her Canal Park remarks, without actually mentioning what the milestones were. It was later in the hearing, when asked for specifics by Tommy Wells, that Young explained the city has now negotiated the termination of the lease with the company renting the northernmost block of the site.
Otherwise, the issue with getting the park underway still boils down to the removal of the school buses, which has apparently been set back further after council chairman Vincent Gray's recent objections to a plan that would have created a citywide school bus parking lot in Prince George's County instead of in the District. Young said that they are now "scrambling" to find another permanent location, as well as an interim lot the Canal Park buses can be moved to, although DCPS does not want to relocate the buses to a temporary site until a permanent solution has been figured out. But Marion Barry made clear that Ward 8 residents oppose moving the buses to D.C. Village, which apparently had been considered as one possible interim solution.
Wells also asked if there were any progress on the creation of water taxi or ferry landings along the waterfront, but Young replied she was unable to give any answers because she was not personally aware of the specifics and that the project manager was not at the hearing, a response heard so many times that committee chairman Brown finally recessed the hearing in exasperation. (Young's "I was on vacation that week" response to a question by Barry about the specifics of a Poplar Point decision was my personal favorite.) Brown said that there will be another hearing scheduled, and admonished the Deputy Mayor's office that next time they need to be ready with facts and the appropriate staffers in attendance at oversight hearings, and not just repeat "We'll get back to you on that" over and over.
If you're interested in the other projects and want to see the hearing, check the DC Cable 13 listings for replays.
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Council Hearing on Canal Park, Southwest Waterfront, and More
Just a reminder for those interested in the progress of Canal Park (as well as the Southwest Waterfront, Hill East, and other former AWC initiatives) that there's a DC council Committee on Economic Development Public oversight hearing on these projects on Monday (Oct. 1) at 12 noon in Room 500 of the Wilson Building. The DC Cable 13 schedule indicates that the hearing will be broadcast live, which means you can either watch the live webcast or dial up Channel 13 if you live in the District and have cable.
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