The BRMS's executive director has quickly denied this, saying that the submitted proposal for 929-930 "replaces, at a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, the square footage lost as additional green space on other portions of the site," but the Save the Virginia Avenue Park Committee is, shall we say, skeptical and displeased, as you can see in the THIH's blog post and its comments thread. Controversy is a-swirling!

For a bit more background, you can also read my recent entry about the meeting where the unsolicited development plan for the 929-930 site recently submitted to the Marines by two landowners on those blocks was first mentioned. There was also discussion at that meeting about how any developer looking to work with the Marines on the Barracks project will need to demonstrate that they have control of all portions of the site they're proposing, which would be a dicey propostion if the 929-930 proposal includes any chunk of the park, since the National Park Service (which controls the park) won't state its views on the Marines taking part of the park until a NEPA process is completed. Unless the Marines convince Congress to pass "special legislation," according to Norm Metzger. My previous posts on the search process give additional background, if you're itching for more information.

But it's best to remember at this point that there are still no announced decisions on where the Marines may go. There are public forums scheduled for Nov. 30 and Dec. 7 to update the community on the process.

Given Batterson's description that the church will now have frontage on 7th, 8th, Virginia, and L, it would appear that the new lot under contract is the empty one directly across from the Marine Barracks on 7th, where a few years back a small developer had dreams of an apartment building, but never followed through; the lot then sold for $400,000 through a foreclosure sale last year.

Batterson says that this lot will enable NCC to add about 15,000 square feet to their final footprint--"and I don't think we're done yet." (Maybe that auto garage on the southeast corner of 7th and K is noticing that the church will soon own the land on both sides of it.)

The church is buying the properties because they're running out of space for services and staff at Ebenezers, Batterson has written. There's been no official announcement of what exactly they're planning for the site, but in a tweet to me right after I wrote about the first land purchase, Batterson said, "definitely another Ebenezers and we'd like to design a theater."

* The National Capital Planning Commission's staff has recommended approval of the new designs for 401 M Street at the Yards, the new-construction building now redesigned to have residential units on top of a grocery-store-that-totally-isn't-Harris-Teeter-because-they-haven't-said-so-officially. The staff "recommends that the Commission recommend" [I love that] "that the massing and facade scale and articulation of the new building on Parcel D be studied and refined further as the design is developed. Staff notes that the grocery store should be treated with cladding that differentiates it from the residential tower and clearly acknowledges the presence and complements the scale of the sentry tower." You can see the designs on my 401 M page. The NCPC meets Thursday, Oct. 7, but this is a consent calendar agenda item, so it won't be discussed at the meeting.

* A subscribers-only WBJ piece discusses the new "Austin Grill Express" food-court concession that serves wings, burritos, tacos, and salads, that already has 11 locations since it launched about a year ago. There's another 11 on the way by the end of the year, and the owner is hoping for another 40 to 50 of them next year. One of the locations the owners are talking to? Nationals Park.

* What would the Blue Castle look like if it weren't blue? Madison Marquette included a rendering of a revamped 770 M (with what looks like a grocery offering of some sort) in the slides it showed at last week's Southwest Waterfront public meeting. There's been no official news of plans for the building, or a timeline on when work might happen. For those just joining us, the Blue Castle was originally a "car barn" back when DC had trolleys and then streetcars.

The church's head, Mark Batterson, wrote on his blog in late August about the purchase of the 8th and Virginia site, which he called "the last piece of property on Capitol Hill." The church is running out of space for services and staff at Ebenezers, he wrote, and since his vision for NCC is 20 locations and more than 100 staffers, they're looking at "going vertical" and constructing a building with about 50,000 square feet of space.

I don't know anything at this point about timing, design, or anything, but I'm guessing because of its location on 8th Street any proposed building will have to go through the city's zoning processes (as well as probably historic preservation and ANC 6B). And it looks like they may be in the very early stages of design themselves, because today is apparently the "visioning charrette" for the new property.

Note that the purchase covers the Miles Glass building and attached garage as well as the vacant lot just to the west. But the adjacent storefronts on 8th Street, including Al's Deli, are not part of the purchase.

As for managing to secure the property, apparently there must have been some divine intervention, because according to Batterson, NCC lost the contract to other parties three times before finally purchasing the site.

It does look like maybe they're looking at using their current Annex site at Seventh and L a little more intensely than it seemed in their early public workshops, with the possibility of expanding its footprint westward to Fifth Street, which would mean taking over the site where a new community center is to be built, and demolishing the parking garage built just east of Fifth in 2004. (But a new community center could be built as part of the "shared uses" scenario that the Marines are looking to enter into as part of their new plans to "create a win-win solution" for both the community and the USMC.) The baseball and soccer fields currently on the site would most likely be taken over in this scenario.

The Square 929/930 and 11th Street Exxon sites both would mean that the Virginia Avenue PARK AND Garden would have to be relocated, and though the document says that "replacement sites to be provided with goal of no net loss," the PARK AND garden's fans are fighting hard to not lose their current location.

The option of relocating the barracks to a site within the walls of the Navy Yard is also still on the table, though with the Navy talking about its own needs for an additional 700,000 square feet, it would seem difficult to reconcile the two expansion plans within the finite space of the WNY.

There probably won't be much news on the Barracks front until the "charrette" in September (details TBA), unless the Development Fairy makes a surprise appearance before then and finds a location that pleases all sides. For more background on the search up to now, read my previous entries.

(UPDATED to prevent hordes of Virginia Avenue Park fans from burning me in effigy for mistakenly referring only to the garden and not the entire park.)

And this gives me an excuse to link to my own Historic Photos page, which includes some of the photos that Madison Marquette posted along with others of the neighborhood from about 1918 to 1992. (There's also my Historic Maps page, for plats showing the neighborhood for various years between 1903 and 1921, if you want more wayback goodness.)

There are a lot more cool historic Near Southeast images out there, but unfortunately some libraries and historical societies tend to be quite strict about reproducing photos from their archives (often requiring payment even for use of low-res images that already exist online), so rather than those photos getting seen by people who are truly interested, they languish in file cabinets or little-used online databases. It's a shame, because I could have a lot of fun with them, but the attendant bureaucracy has pretty well stifled my interest in pursuing them any farther or even linking to them. Plus I'm too honorable to just steal the thumbnails and post them anyway, which I could certainly do. (And you can be very sure that my photos will never end up with these levels of restrictions.)

At least the great archive of historic photos that DDOT had begun to populate a few years ago is still around (though not on their new site, you kind of have to go digging for it via Google). Hopefully they'll get around to adding more shots. I've got a scanner, DDOT, let me at them!

* The Lower 8th Street Visioning Process is having its final public meetings on Tuesday (Feb. 23) at 8:30 am and 7 pm at the People's Church, 535 8th St., SE. In case you haven't been following along, here's a good description by Barracks Row Main Street of what the process has been and hopes to achieve (via The Hill is Home): "The Lower 8th Street SE Visioning Process Advisory Committee has coordinated a vision process with property owners, other community stakeholders, and Barracks Row Main Street along the Lower 8th Street, SE corridor. Sponsored by the Capitol Riverfront BID, this process is an attempt to gain consensus on a vision for the area and to address issues of height, density, mix of uses, parking and access, as well as what should be the character of a redesigned Virginia Avenue Park as an amenity or community benefit for the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood and Capitol Hill. If consensus can be reached on the vision, it could serve as the basis for asking the Office of Planning to develop a small area neighborhood plan that could then be used as justification for any agreed upon zoning or density changes. This final meeting will attempt to synthesize a community consensus on the vision of Lower 8th Street." (A lot of qualified statements in there.)

* Alas, at the same time as the 8th Street evening session is the rescheduled ANC 6B monthly meeting, at 7 pm at the Old Naval Hospital at 921 Pennsylvania Ave., SE.

* Also via The Hill is Home, news that the first community workshop on the Marines' "Community Integrated Master Plan" as they look for a new location for their barracks and other facility needs is scheduled for Wednesday (Feb. 24) from 6 to 8 pm at the Van Ness Elementary School at 5th and M, SE. This first workshop "will focus on the goals and objectives" of the CIMP, according to the project's web site.

* On Thursday, Feb. 25, ANC 6D is having its snow-postponed monthly meeting, at St. Augustine's church at 6th and M, SW, at 7 pm.

* The Trapeze School posted on its Facebook page this afternoon that they're getting their inspections on Tuesday, and are hoping to have their first classes in their new home at Fourth and Tingey at the Yards on Thursday.

* (h/t "reader X") The second foreclosure sale held yesterday for the boarded-up apartment building and surrounding lots at Potomac, Ninth and L brought no bids above the $2 million starting point, so the properties will now return to the lender. An earlier auction back in October had brought a $2.461 million winning bid, but that deal fell through. The properties were originally bought by ICP Partners in 2006, along with the gray building at Eighth and Potomac, for $9 million.

* Via ANC 6B03 commissioner Norm Metzger, the Marines have created a web site for their "Community Integrated Master Plan." The site describes this planning process as evaluating "community-military development partnering options" because "[t]here are unmet facility needs and security requirements at Marine Barracks Washington and a potential to meet common community and military needs through the process" and that their goal is "to use a coordinated planning process to create a win-win in meeting the development needs of the local community and Marine Corps." Now that that's cleared up, you can go to the open house they're having on Jan. 27 from 5 to 8 pm in the North Hall of Eastern Market, to "assist the planning team in identifying issues, concerns, and potential opportunities for military-community development partnering."

* One of many service reductions proposed by WMATA to help close their FY2010 budget gap is to shut down one of the two entrances to the Navy Yard metro station on weekends. (They don't say which one.) The public hearing on their various proposals is Jan. 27 at 5:30 pm. UPDATE: From Michael Perkins, in the comments, it would be the west entrance, at Half and M. I wonder if this would only be when there are no stadium events?

* Via the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce's Twitter feed, there will apparently be one more Lower 8th Street visioning session, on February 22. After this final session, the group will forward its recommendations to the Office of Planning on what sort of development should be emphasized for these blocks south of the freeway.

* In Sunday's Post, Dr. Gridlock took a look at the 11th Street Bridges project, telling drivers what to expect as the construction unfolds, and that the "new bridges will forge a link between Maryland, the District and Virginia that has been missing since the original highway plan for the District was abandoned decades ago. And it will create a new link between neighborhoods on both sides of the Anacostia while relieving them of some of the commuter traffic that spills onto local streets."

* As part of the start of work on the bridges, a raze permit application has been filed to demolish the old red brick buildings between the current bridges that housed the Anacostia Community Boathouse, whose operations are now moving up-river to a temporary (maybe permanent) home at the Anacostia Marina.

* A little time spent trolling through public records shows that within the past month a bunch of the liens brought against Opus East when they liquidated and stopped work on 1015 Half Street have been settled. No indications from the new owner (Douglas Wilson Companies) as to when construction might restart, despite their statements back in October that it would be happening soon.

* I wrote back in December about the DDOT public meeting that gave a lot of updated information about how the Performance Parking Pilot around the ballpark is going; DDOT has now posted a 21-page report with all the details, which is worth reading for anyone interested not only in how parking is being handled in the neighborhood, but about the non-automotive improvements that the meter income will be funding.

* The Third "Opera in the Outfield" at Nationals Park will be on September 11, a simulcast of the Washington National Opera's season premiere, Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" ("A Masked Ball").

* The Lower 8th Street Visioning project has posted both the materials from its December sessions, and the agenda for the upcoming meetings on Jan. 19, which "will progress to looking at best mix of uses, breakout workshops on land use, density and parking, and closing with a Q&A."

* Peeking at the building permits feed, I noted the approved permit for the ballpark, described as "INTERIOR DEMOLITION AS PER PLANS TO SUIT TENANT 'PNC DIAMOND CLUB'." A Twitter follower indicated that they had seen the work on the Diamond Club already underway. No word from the Nationals on what exactly is coming.

* The Nats put out this "Nats in Your Neighborhood" newsletter, detailing good works around the city, including the work last month by the Dream Foundation on the United Southwest Health Center a few blocks from the ballpark, in Southwest.