Today's Washington Business Journal has a piece (subscribers only for 30 days) detailing the arduous journey of the 1.1-million-sq-ft Florida Rock project over the years (which JDLand readers are intimately familiar with already!): "Finally, its time has come. At least that's what developers of 100 Potomac Ave. SE -- which is along the Anacostia River and smack across the street from the new baseball stadium being built -- are hoping. FRP Development of Sparks, Md. started the redevelop process for the 5.8-acre site more than a decade ago. And now is waiting a final decision on the project plan from the District Zoning Commission Feb. 12. If approved, the plan would go to the National Capital Planning Commission review and come back for final action in April. It also would finalize one of the integral pieces of the Anacostia waterfront redevelopment, which has been one of the city's goals for decades. [...] The plan, as it is now, is for development of 1.1 million square feet spread over four buildings: 600,000 square feet office, more than 60,000 square feet retail, 160 apartment units and a 235-room hotel, all with 1,087 below-ground parking spots. In addition, the project will be set back 75 feet from the waterfront and will have a river walk that would provide public access to the river. " As for a timeline? "If the approval goes through, FRP Development will start work on the office/retail buildings on the eastern side and closer to the ballpark first, which could be as soon as next year, Briggs says. The rest of the project would be a phased development that could take another 10 years to build out because construction of the third and fourth buildings would have to wait until the District completes building the new [Frederick Douglass] bridge." You can see renderings and drawings on my Florida Rock page (with updated ones hopefully coming soon).

The architects of the Florida Rock project (Davis Buckley Architects and Planners) have generously passed along an updated "map" showing the layout of the 5.8-acre site that sits between the Nationals ballpark and the Anacostia River. The project will have 600,000 sq ft office space, 92,000 sq ft retail, 160 residential units, and a 235-room hotel, spread across four buildings. There will also be a waterfront esplanade, and the eastern edge of the site (where a big portion of the retail will be located on multiple glassed-in floors) will be the western border of the new 39,000-sq-ft First Street Plaza that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation is planning for the foot of First Street. The Zoning Commission is scheduled to vote on the Florida Rock second-stage PUD on Feb. 12; the project would take a number of years to be completed, but hopes are that construction would begin on the eastern portion in early 2008. And stay tuned, there hopefully will be new renderings of the buildings themselves within the next few weeks.

I've now posted PDFs of some of the Monument Realty submissions to the Zoning Commission for the January 11 public hearing on their Half Street/Ballpark District mixed-use project: you can grab yourself a really large, strong cup of coffee and peruse the opening statement (1 MB), the traffic study (3.7 MB, which I linked to a few days ago) or the architectural drawings (13.7 MB). I've also snagged the best of the renderings and added them to my Monument Half Street page. It's expected that the Zoning Commission will vote on this project at its February 12 public meeting, when zoning approval votes are also expected on the 250 M Street and Florida Rock projects. UPDATE: For those who aren't well-versed in the zoning process, I should emphasize that these are the submittal documents--at the public hearings, zoning commissioners ask questions and request clarifications and sometimes modifications, and so what will be voted on isn't necessarily what's seen here. But it's better than nothing!

News from last night's ANC 6D and Zoning Commission meetings:

More posts: ANC News, Florida Rock, Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St., staddis, zoning