* Shipping containers have been arriving at the Fairgrounds (Bullpen) site. (They say there's going to be a "preview" event on March 30--looks like a lot of work to do in eight days. But the real opening is supposed to be in time for the Nats' season opener on April 12.)

* Greenery is arriving at 200 I/225 Virginia, and the sidewalks are done. Apparently the fences will be moved back sometime next week to keep the building perimeter secure but to allow the sidewalks to be used. (In other words, the "street sidewalk" will finally disappear.) There should also be repaving and crosswalk striping around the site coming in early April.

Without Pictures:

* Framing is racing along on the stretch of Capitol Quarter townhomes on 3rd south of L.

* Curbs are going in on 2nd Place next to Canal Park and the pavilion.

* The cherry trees in the Center Field Plaza at Nats Park are budding, but don't look on the verge of popping yet. Perhaps they can hold on until April 3.

Elsewhere:

* Mark Batterson says the demolition of the Miles Glass building and the garage next door on Virginia Avenue will happen next week.

* Yesterday we were talking about the possibility of a little BOOM, but here's what might happen 'round these parts if there's a really BIG BOOM.

* The Post writes about the neighborhood as part of the big Mega RealEstate focus on walkable communities, and keys in on the fact that the area has a number of different names. (For the record, it's not like I made up "Near Southeast"--I was just following the city's lead.) Within a few hours, though, Greater Greater Washington may have solved the problem by pointing us to the area's late-19th-century moniker: "Bloodfield." Wouldn't that work great for ballpark headlines? ("Phillies Dismembered at Bloodfield.")

Anything else folks are seeing?

* Justin's Cafe is looking to have a block party on Saturday, April 14 (when the Nats and the Reds play at 4:05 pm), and ANC 6D has supported the request to close 1st Street between K and L. (Thanks to SWill for, once again, picking up my slack.) Still probably some bureaucratic hoops to jump through before all is confirmed. This was moved from Opening Day so it would be on a weekend, Will says,

* Looks like DPW's trucks have departed a couple weeks earlier than expected from the agency's longtime home at New Jersey and K, although all the lights may not be turned out just yet. Demolition is in the cards, though some environmental abatement has to happen first.

* New striping and bike lanes were installed Monday on I Street SE between South Capitol and New Jersey.

* Start starving yourself now to prepare for the Red Porch's eight-pound "StrasBurger."

* Photographic evidence of fences down at the old Bullpen, clearing the way for Fairgrounds.

* Only four houses left for sale at Capitol Quarter.

* Bank of America is now building out its new space in the ground floor of 55 M south of the Metro entrance, informed sources say. (They're closing their Southwest location in June.)

* Could DC United be setting up shop just a few blocks up Potomac Avenue from Nationals Park?

* Near Southeast gets off relatively easy in this Sunday's National Marathon Street Closure Sweepstakes (just South Capitol south of L, and the Douglass Bridge).

Anything else going on these days? Besides that sandwich shop opening?

UPDATE: Let's add the elephant parade! Starting tonight at 8 pm, on the southern edge of Garfield Park at the train tracks where Virginia crosses under New Jersey, says WTOP.

UPDATE II: And, from the Hill is Home, a Q&A with ANC commissioner David Garber.

UPDATE III: I sent a lackey down to Potbelly to get a few opening-day shots. Hope he's not expecting to get reimbursed for his lunch.

The Foundry Lofts building is all but done, with only the retail spaces left to be built out, so I took a bunch of "after" photos that will probably last for a while. But that new Potbelly sign sure stands out! I also pressed my nose against the glass to peek inside the sandwich shop's space--it sure doesn't look far from opening.

Embarrassingly, I haven't had a camera in hand on the Navy Yard's portion of the Anacostia Riverwalk since 2004. (I'm always worried they're going to toss me in the brig as a security threat, especially after a run-in a few years back where I was chased down by both a gate sentry and the DC police after taking photos of the Hull Street gate from across M Street.) But I pushed forward yesterday and got a bunch of new shots that I've added to my Navy Yard page, taking care to demonstrate to the many security cameras that I was photographing the river and not the installation. (Don't miss the especially cool before-and-after of the gate to the Yards Park.)

I will probably be creating a separate Riverwalk page before too long, but not today.

Along 11th Street at N and M, photos are more notable for what's not there anymore, as the demolition of the embankment for the old outbound RFK ramp is done, and the path of the new ramp from M Street for traffic headed to the outbound 11th Street Bridges freeway traffic becomes more obvious. Also see this picture of the work on the 11th Street Local bridge, showing the demolition of part of the old outbound bridge approach, which has to be done before the new local bridge can hook up with 11th Street. (You can see it as well in my O Street before-and-afters, if you figure out what to look for.) Check my 11th Street Bridges photo page for more images.

Then there's Canal Park, where I mainly took some new photos of the pavilion under construction near M Street, since photos of digging and ground work don't quite rise to the level of "interesting." I also hit most of the angles for the Boilermaker Shops, as well as for Capitol Quarter Phase II, where the security guard expressed concern about my actions (I need a laminated Photography Approved card or something). And I wandered the 225 Virginia/200 I perimeter.

If you're a glutton for punishment, you can browse the 267 pictures from this trek that are now in my Photo Archive, using the links to see before-and-afters.

* Capitol Hill Day School has moved back into its digs at the Dent School north of the freeway after spending the fall and early part of 2012 in "modular classrooms" on the Capper Community Center site at 5th and K, SE.

The trailers are scheduled to be hauled away sometime next week; I hear that the Housing Authority folks are looking into keeping the fence that CHDS put up and laying down some additional sod in order to create a small playing field for kids.

There's still no word on when the community center itself may get built, though DCHA is (still) working on getting the financing.

* If you've seen new granite curbs and gutters going in along 3rd, K, and L in front of Cornercopia and the "legacy" houses around which Capitol Quarter has been built, those are being installed by the Housing Authority as a small community benefit for those homeowners who have been surrounded by a whole lot of construction over the past few years. New brick sidewalks will be coming as well; new street lights are also a possibility, though that's not confirmed.

* Foundations are being poured for the townhouses along 3rd Street south of L that are part of the last block of Capitol Quarter construction. Didn't see framing underway when I rode by on Saturday, but perhaps that's started since?

* There's also apparently some kerfuffling these days within the CQ homeowners association, sparked by working on the community's response to the plans for the Virginia Avenue Tunnel reconstruction (the project that continues to put a smile on everyone's faces!). I mention it here because I wouldn't want to be accused of sweeping such important news under the rug, but I'd really prefer that my comments section not become a place for the battle to be litigated.

On Monday, DDOT was plugging a "Parking Chat" being held with their head Terry Bellamy and the top dogs at DMV and DPW, and asked readers for "parking questions."

Because I can't ever resist being a smart ass, I replied: "My parking question: When will DPW be parking its truck fleet on Okie St. NE instead of New Jersey Ave. SE? :-)" (See that smiley? I was at least acknowledging I was being a smart ass.)

So I was surprised to see this from @DCDPW this morning:

"The move is scheduled to take place on March 31st."

As I've written a number of times, this move needs to happen so that old trash transfer building at New Jersey and K can be demolished, which will allow for the transfer of a smidge of that property to William C. Smith so that they can begin work on the Park Chelsea apartment building on the block just to the north. It will also clear the way for the punching through of I Street from 2nd Street to New Jersey Avenue, which WC Smith will handle as part of the Park Chelsea construction.

This is a later time frame than we had last heard (which is nothing new for this spot), but it sounds like they certainly do expect to be moving at the end of March.

The trash transfer site itself is slated to eventually be a mixed-income apartment building under the Capper Hope VI redevelopment plan.

In the Renovation/Rehabilitation portion of the tour, we have a few updated images of the Boilermaker Shops (above left), another building that's tough to shoot in winter, even more so when there's not much of it other than steel beams at the moment (though they have recently been painted white). Meanwhile, 225 Virginia/200 I is coming pretty close to the end of its exterior renovations, though work inside will continue in preparation for the arrival of three DC agencies later this year.

There isn't much new to see of Lot 38 Espresso (aka the Little Red Building 2.0, above left), which the grapevine says is now shooting for a mid-December opening. (But, really, at this point, it opens when it opens--the last batch of permits and approvals is always slow going, and I bet the owner wants it open even more than you do.) I also took a bunch of shots of the former National Geospatial Intelligence Agency building at 1st and M (above right), not because there's been any changes to it, but because I really enjoyed finally being able to aim a camera at it without having guards reaching for their guns. (Nyaah! Nyaah! Click! Click! Click!)

I came home with 438 new photos (yikes), and you can browse the 180-plus I decided to upload to the online archive here. (Yes, it's true, you don't actually get to see every photo I've ever taken. Which is probably for the best.)

Remember to click the icon to see the entire range of photos for any location, while the project pages linked to above are your best bet if you're looking for paired before-and-afters and/or narrated tours.

And, in case you didn't see my tweet or my late-night update, the residential/Teeter project at 4th and M got all the dotted i's and crossed t's I mentioned in my initial post, and is officially now considered by Forest Ctiy as "commenced." (I just can't call it 1212 4th Street yet. Doesn't really make the location pop as well as "4th and M.")

There isn't really all that much to take photos of in the neighborhood right now, especially since I did a full set back in September, but I did take a quick walk through Capitol Quarter and over to 225 Virginia/200 I to get updated images:

The old Post Plant monolith ain't quite so monolith-y anymore, is it?

You can browse the expanded photo archives for 225 Virginia and Capitol Quarter Phase 2 for lots and lots of images (with today's shots marked by the icon, as always), or visit the Capitol Quarter and 225 Virginia/200 I project pages for a more "narrated" tour.

There's apparently been some concern by Capitol Quarter residents about the 200 I construction, but representatives of Stonebridge gave an update to them saying that "base building work" (i.e., outside stuff) will be completed in the next four months, which seems pretty much on the schedule announced when work began back in February. Interior work will begin in December, with DC agencies expected to begin moving in around June 2012. But 3rd and I streets will probably be a bit of a mess as utility work and the construction of the single-deck parking garage continue. My post from March on the parking garage configuration may also be of interest, if you haven't been following along, as might all of my 225 Virginia/200 I posts, going back many years....

And, once you're finished wandering through these shots, how about filling out my Reader Survey? (I PROMISE that this link actually works!) It's only going to be up for a few more days....

I don't have any of the documents for this round of the lottery (didn't get any notification of it in advance this time around), but here's the information provided for the last lottery, back in March. At that time, household income needed to be under $119,025 in order to qualify, and there were scads of qualifications and requirements that potential lottery entrants needed to be certified as having passed in order to participate.

As for the rest of Capitol Quarter, it is nearing the finish line, with seven or eight market-rate homes left to sell on the second-to-last block (bounded by 3rd, 4th, K, and L), along with the 12 market-rate homes that will be available on the final block on the south side of L between 3rd and 4th (right behind the 300 M Street office building).

This portion of the Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopment should be completed by next summer, with the two phases of the Capitol Quarter townhouse development bringing approximately 120 market-rate houses, 82 workforce-rate units, 25 Section 8 ownership units, and 86 subsidized rental units. This is in addition to the 162 subsidized senior housing units at 900 5th Street and 138 subsidized units at 400 M Street. This leaves five mixed-income apartment buildings and the 250 M and 600 M office buildings still to be built to complete the Hope VI plans that will replace the 707 units of public housing one-to-one, along with constructing an additional 1,000-plus market-rate and workforce-rate units. No timelines have been announced for the next phases.

There's no police report anywhere as yet, so these are only details I'm getting from readers, but perhaps more information will become available. (I've sent a request into the MPD 1D mailing list.)

UPDATE: This is Commander Hickson's reply to my question on the MPD-1D list: "There was a shooting on the Freeway that involved a passenger in one moving vehicle firing at another moving vehicle. As a result of that shooting a shot struck and entered a private premise in the 300 block of VA Ave SE, causing damage to the home and the targeted vehicle. Thankfully, no one was injured in the vehicle or the home. The only description that was provided was for a black "luxury" vehicle, occupied by three subjects."

UPDATE II: Here's WJLA's story on the episode (though goodness, it needs a copy editor desperately). And Fox5's.

As for doings at Monday night's ANC 6D meeting beyond the Metro station renaming items I already wrote about:

* Capper Time Extensions: The commission voted 7-0 to support the request for two-year extensions on two planned Capper apartment buildings and the office building planned for 600 M Street, which is also part of the Capper redevelopment. (I hadn't realized that 600 M was part of this request when I wrote my entry last week.) This would push the planned start dates for these three projects into the late 2013-early 2014 time frame.

As is usually the case with any Capper issue in front of the commission, Chairman McBee brought up the delayed community center, which Housing Authority representatives said should get its needed $7.4 million in funding when a new bond issuance happens later this year, and a building permit should be filed for in advance of the July 2012 deadline. As is also most always the case with Capper issues, the commission also wanted statistics and information on the former residents of the project, and whether they are being tracked and worked with. The DCHA reps said that 129 residents have returned to Capper, with another 550 on the waiting list, though some of those have turned down recently completed units for various issues (not wanting a walkup, etc.). This is with about half of the required 707 public housing units already constructed.

This extension was to have been heard by the Zoning Commission on Monday night, but since the ANC had not yet had a chance to weigh in, the applicants agreed with a request to delay action until the Zoning Commission's Sept. 26 meeting. If you want to know more, you can read my entry from last week (no need to write it all again!).

* Redistricting: The ANC proffered an alternate Single Member District map from what the Ward 6 Redistricting Task Force has proposed. It tweaks the proposed boundaries in a way that moves current commissioner David Garber's building and the 70/100 I buildings back into 6D07 (along with the small block in Southwest bordered by South Capitol, M, N, and Carrollsburg Place), while placing Capitol Hill Tower, 909 New Jersey, and Velocity in 6B03, which reaches across South Capitol from Southwest. (The proposed SMDs that cover Near Southeast are in my quickie map at right.) Commissioner Cara Shockley, whose 6D02 was altered substantially from what the task force had proposed (it would have covered the portion of Near Southeast now given to 6D03, along with 70/100 I and Onyx, but not CHT), told the commission she was completely opposed to the new boundaries, and had no idea that such a big change was being proposed by the ANC, having been unable to open the attachments with the map images. David Garber took no official position on 6D's map, saying that because his constituents have made clear that they feel Near Southeast belongs in 6B and not 6D he would not be voting. In the end, the ANC supported the resolution offering up the alternate map in a 4-1-2 vote, with Garber and Bob Craycraft abstaining and Shockley voting against.

The task force's next public meeting is on Sept. 19 to propose the second draft of SMD boundaries, followed by a final meeting to approve their final draft maps on Sept. 22. Tommy Wells will then submit recommendations on boundaries to the city council by Sept. 30. For more on all the redistricting process, see my previous entries.