ANC 6D's January meeting is Monday, Jan. 9, and its agenda is now available. It contains mostly items pertaining to SW (including a presentation by Forest City Enterprises on Waterside Mall, which I know is of interest to many of you), but what caught my eye was this: "Presentation: Variance and Special Exception, 900 New Jersey Avenue SE." Whaa? For those of you who don't know the street grid inside out, 900 New Jersey would be on the east side of the street between K and (the nonexistent) I Street, and is currently occupied by a DC Department of Public Works facility (the one with the tall brick chimney). The DPW site is part of the Capper / Carrollsburg PUD, which calls for a mid- to high-rise residential building on that lot. Are they moving forward with this? Is this something else? Or is it some boring little thing about eventually re-opening I Street, and nothing more? I'm doing some digging, and maybe I'll have an answer before Monday's meeting. But it is intriguing....  UPDATE: The agenda has been changed, and the 900 NJ Ave presentation is no longer there; it has been replaced with a presentation on proposed alley closings on the east side of Square 743, the 1100 block of 1st Street, SE. And apparently the "900 NJ Ave" label was an incorrect reference to the zoning adjustment request for the JPI project, which is not on New Jersey Ave (it's at 100 I Street). So for now, the DPW site is not going anywhere. UPDATE II: These JPI projects have driven me crazy since the beginning. To clarify a bit, JPI is also in the process of buying land on the west side of the 900 block of New Jersey (which includes the Nexus Gold Club), so they do plan on giving a presenation to ANC 6D soon about desired variances and exceptions for that project. But nothing for this second JPI project has shown up yet on any of the zoning calendars....

It's been a busy busy weekend here at the Near Southeast page. To reflect the true boundaries of the area I'm tracking, the map at right has been expanded, to 11th Street to the east and to South Capitol and S Streets in the south. I've also added two new pages to the site: the New South Capitol Street Bridge page, and the Near Southeast East End page, both of which have lots and lots of photos, and links to information about what's happening in those spots. I've also finally made my Navy Yard page more than an afterthought, adding many more pictures (although not so many from inside the Navy Yard walls, I don't want a visit from the Homeland Security folks). I know this makes the map smaller and a bit harder to read, but I also needed to leave some space for when more projects get underway. And, in the midst of all that, I added new photos to many of the existing pages: check out the DOT HQ, Washington Canal Park, Capitol Hill Tower, Florida Rock, and WASA pages to see them. (You'll also find a few new pictures on some other pages, but it'd be embarassing to mention them here when there's only one new photo on a page.)

I was a bit late with my June progress photos, so I'm mixing things up by posting my July photos earlier than I might have; new images are on available on the DOT, Capitol Hill Tower, Washington Canal Park, and M Street pages. These were taken last week when I accompanied a group from the National Building Museum's Investigating Where We Live summer program around Near Southeast, making the poor kids tolerate my incessant blathering about What This Area Will Eventually Look Like.

It's site update day! I've posted new photos on the following pages: DOT HQ, Capitol Hill Tower, Nationals Stadium, and M Street. And because I don't always put the latest photos at the top of these pages, I'm now including a   icon with the pictures to help you pick out the fresh content. Also, as I threatened a few days back, I've created a page for the 20 M Street SE office building project. Not exactly a barn-burner of a page at this point, since I can only post so many pictures of an empty lot without going crazy, but it's a start.

M Street SE, from the waterfront to the Navy Yard, is included in the "high priority corridors" in the DC Metro system's 10-year expansion plan for light rail or bus rapid transit. Two corridors--from the Anacostia Corridor to the Waterfront Metro station, and from the Silver Spring Metro station to Anacostia--would run along M Street. A three-mile demonstration version will be built in Anacostia in 2004.

One of the "landmarks" of the old M Street disappeared at some point in the last month--the boarded up gas station on the northwest corner of 3rd and M. Eventually there will be another office building there (250 M Street), but there's no firm construction date yet ("maybe in 2004", according to a William C. Smith rep). (May 2004 update: fences have gone up around the lot, but not for construction--it's been turned into a parking lot, so it doesn't look like they're planning for development anytime soon.)