Another building has bitten the dust on the Monument Half Street site, and I think everyone can agree it will not be lamented on its death--it's the brown cinderblock building just north of the N Street intersection, and it's now been immortalized on my Demolished Buildings page. And, thanks to Camera 2 of the Clark/Hunt/Smoot Stadium Construction Cam, we can see that it breathed its last between 11:11 and 11:22 this morning, March 15. (I'm pretty sure I'm the only one using that camera to not watch the stadium construction!) They appear to be working around the temporary WMATA lot that they built just north of the cinder-shed; at the same time, work appears to be nearly complete on the next WMATA temporary lot, over at 1236 South Capitol (formerly home to the neon yellow bungalow, just south of the storage company).There's a zoning hearing on April 23 for permanent approval of the new temporary lot (it was approved on an emergency basis back in November).

It took awhile to get into the city's Real Property Sales Database, but it can now be reported that WMATA sold its land on the east side of Half Street and one parcel on M Street to Monument Realty on Dec. 26 for $15.4 million. This is the land on top of the Navy Yard Metro stop east entrance that's now going to become the first part of Monument's Half Street/Ballpark District mixed-use development; as part of this deal, Monument is handling the renovation/expansion of the subway station, already underway.

Wednesday's Post reports that, despite being stripped of piles and piles of earmarks, the $463 million federal spending bill working its way through Congress includes the $20 million needed to fund the upgrades to the Navy Yard Metro station. Which just goes to show, earmarks are only evil when they aren't YOUR pet projects.

Within the past week, two of the unoccupied buildings in the blocks just north the stadium site were demolished: 1236 South Capitol, that funky neon-yellow bungalow sandwiched between the BP gas station and the Public Storage Building, and 1201 Cushing, a little white ramshackle building behind a wooden fence that you would never have seen unless you ventured down Cushing south of M. (In fact, *I* had never seen it until late last year.) The South Capitol Street site is being cleared so that the WMATA employee parking lot that was just moved a few hundred feet south from next to the Navy Yard Metro Half Street entrance can be relocated again (see my entry about this from back in November). The Cushing lot is the first demolition as the land gets cleared for Monument Realty's Half Street mixed-use project (55 M Street et al). These have now been added to the top of my Demolished Builings Gallery; and if you scroll down the page a good ways, you'll see two additional icons. First, I realized that I needed to include the little building demolished sometime in 2005 that was attached to the west side of Nation; then, while browsing through my photos, I found out that not only had the empty lot on the west side of the Good N Plenty carryout at Half and N contained a rowhouse within the relatively recent past, but that I actually had one photo of it, so it's added to the Gallery now as well. I imagine the Demolished Buildings page is going to get a pretty good workout over the next few weeks. UPDATE: Fixed the bad Demolished Buildings Gallery link. Oops.

At yesterday's WMATA board meeting, approval was given to begin working on the replacement of the Southeastern Bus Garage, the red brick building on the southwest corner of Half and M. They've established a $500,000 budget for a three-month feasibility study, which will evaluate the DC government's preferred relocation site for the garage, within DC Village, as well as the possibility of creating an interim facility at the site for an "early relocation." The budget for this is being funded by the sale in October of the parking lot across Half Street to Monument Realty. The bus garage site is one that Monument has been negotiating for, so that it can be the sole developer of that entire block of Half Street. As for the fate of the bus garage building itself, I don't know anything one way or the other, except that during Monument's Zoning Commission testimony two weeks ago, mention was made by Monument's consultant that there are "historic preservation issues" with the bus garage, with what I interpreted as an intimation that whatever is planned for the west side of Half Street will not move forward with the same amount of speed as is seen on the east side. I imagine it will end up at the very least that the facade of the garage will be saved--and it is indeed a pretty cool building, as far as garages go (though It'll be cooler once there aren't Metro buses all around it, though).

(A news item for the three of you who aren't horrifically tired of Navy Yard Metro station expansion groundbreaking news items, a group which doesn't even include me by this point.) If you have cable TV in DC, you can see last Tuesday's station groundbreaking ceremony on DC Cable 16 Friday night at 9:30 pm and at various times over the next week or so.

Thanks to correspondent John for passing along news that slipped through (no advisories from Metro or the Mayor's office, darn them!). Tuesday (Jan. 16) at 10 am Mayor Fenty will be making remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Navy Yard Metro station's expansion project. This is to increase the station's capacity from 5,000 riders an hour to 15,000, and is to be finished by Opening Day 2008, while work continues above it on Monument Realty's mixed-use project along Half Street. And maybe after the mayor's remarks, everyone can parade over en masse to the Nexus Gold Club auction. (And I do see now that the event is buried on the Mayor's schedule. I thought that religiously checking the News Releases and the Advisories was good enough, alas.)

More posts: 909 New Jersey, Restaurants/Nightlife, jpi, Metro/WMATA, Monument Valley/Half St., staddis