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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: square 740
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909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
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27 Blog Posts Since 2003
Go to Page: 1 | 2 | 3

Short items:
* Positive Nature, the program for at-risk youth that is in danger of losing its rented space at 1017 New Jersey Avenue because of a sharp increase in its property taxes, is looking for volunteers to help with a "massive bucket fundraiser" on Saturday and Sunday as fans arrive for the first games at Nationals Park. They have been working on raising $200,000 by the end of March. The fundraiser info, which came via e-mail, isn't posted on their web site yet.
* Metro says via press release that the sales office at the Southeastern Bus Garage will close on Thursday (March 27), in advance of the garage itself shutting down operations the next day. And WTOP is reporting today on the proposal to lease the bus garage and its parking lot to the Nats for parking, but you can find far more detail about it all in my post from Friday than you will in WTOP's blurb.
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More posts: West Half St., Metro/WMATA, New Jersey Ave., square 740
 

Just a few items to end your day (or start it, I guess):
* WTOP makes sure DDOT is planning to take down the old "Stadium" signs on the SE/SW Freeway that point drivers to RFK rather than Nationals Park. Meanwhile, tonight in front of the Zoning Commission, Gregory McCarthy from the Nationals said that new signs will soon be posted on the freeway indicating which exits fans should use for the ballpark based on the color-coding of the parking lots.
* A press release from the Nationals gives the basics on Saturday's 6 pm exhibition game against the Orioles, which is open to season-ticket holders and invited guests only. In one small change, the Nats Express shuttle from RFK will begin operating three hours before gametime, rather than 90 minutes. (The gates at Nationals Park will be opening at 3 pm as well, allowing fans to watch batting practice at 3:30.) A pre-game ceremony will begin at 5:30 pm, with remarks from city officials and a ribbon-cutting at home plate. And then they'll actually play some baseball. It's been said that approximately 25,000 people will be expected for this dry run, in advance of the Big Kahuna the next night.
* The Baltimore Sun's architecture critic says nice things about the place.
* Last week I posted that Splash car wash at 10 I Street SE will be offering both same-day cash lot and season-account parking for $35 per game; word now arrives that the owner of the little empty lot at First and L (next to the Market Deli) is also offering a few spaces (season-long accounts preferred), at $25 per game. Call (301) 279-7033 and ask for Marty Resnick if you're interested. These are separate from the lots around the neighborhood that the Nats have officially contracted with to provide parking for season-ticket holders (and perhaps sameday parkers somewhere down the line).
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More posts: parking, square 740, Nationals Park
 

(News is getting so overwhelming that I'm having to go to two-a-day link roundups. And still, I feel like I'm missing stuff or giving it short shrift. I guess all that patience being pleaded for by the city and the Nationals and Metro needs to extend to JDLand for the next few weeks, too.)
* Today Metro put out an expanded press release (after a similar one a few days ago) with additional details on how they're planning to handle the April 17 Mass at Nationals Park, or as I call it, Pope Day. There's also stories on Metro's plans by WTOP ("Forget about baseball, is Metro ready for the Pope?") and NBC4. In the meantime, Agence France Presse has a piece on how huge the demand for Pope tickets is.
* Via City Paper (which has taken the story to its bosom), a report from Fox 5 on the Positive Nature youth program at 1017 New Jersey, which is struggling to stay afloat after the huge increase in property taxes that has accompanied the redevelopment of Near Southeast. Don't forget that they're having an open house (they're calling it a "radical rally" to keep their doors open) on Saturday March 15 from noon to 3 pm.
 

Positive Nature, the non-profit at 1017 New Jersey that works with at-risk youngsters, is having a "radical rally" on Saturday March 15 from noon to 3 pm, an invitation to the public to tour the facilities and meet the participants as they try to save their program. You can read about their work and their struggle to remain at their New Jersey Avenue site as their property taxes have skyrocketed in this recent City Paper article.
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More posts: New Jersey Ave., square 740
 

* Washington City Paper's cover story this week is "Inside Baseball", a series of vignettes about "winners and losers" around the ballpark. It highlights neighbors such as the Market Deli at First and L and Positive Force around the corner on New Jersey Avenue (and former neighbors such as Ken Wyban, owner of the house at Van and N that was demolished), and talks about the "lost" views of the Capitol from many sections within the stadium. Plus there's quotes from a couple of residents of the nearby housing projects in Southwest that they've "been told" they're going to be moved out, despite vehement denials by the Housing Authority.
* A three-person arbitration board ruled unanimously that the Nationals and not the District should pay for "ancillary items at the new stadium, such as golf carts, fork lifts, and medical and office equipment," saving the city $4.2 million and keeping expenditures within the $611 million cost cap, according to WTOP.
* Links to the avalanche of stories about the new on-street parking plan around the ballpark are at the end of my entry about it from yesterday. Perhaps the saturation coverage--and the advertising campaign by the team scheduled to start next week--will indeed drill into the noggins of the public what's been said for months now: that really, truly, you're not going to find on-street parking, and traffic's going to be crazy anyway. So just take Metro. (And read this Dr. Gridlock blog entry and its comments to get a sense of the wide-ranging views of the public on using Metro. And have fun with the writer who discussed the "questionable neighborhood" the N22 bus goes through--you know, Capitol Hill.)
* And, what if nearby residents start scalping their visitors passes?
* But can we also drill into the collective conscience that there's not "only 1,200 parking spaces" at the ballpark? Yes, the ballpark footprint itself has only 1,200 spaces, but the team has contracted with close-by lots to cobble together more than 4,000 spaces. As we found out in the Post, those didn't even all get taken by season-ticket holders and in fact may now allow for a small number of spaces to be made available on gamedays to non-season ticket holders.
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More posts: marketdeli, parking, square 740, Nationals Park
 

Word has arrived that the Market Deli at First and L, the cab company at New Jersey and L, and the small empty lot between them have gone on the market as a joint sale, with an asking price of $11 million for the 9,000-plus square feet of land. It's one of the last spots in Near Southeast west of Eighth Street where the land is still owned by individuals and not developers, and anyone watching the corner shouldn't be surprised that this is finally happening--and given that behemoth Akridge owns most of the rest of that block's land along First Street, maybe they might be watching this offering with interest. The deal is being spearheaded by the Resnick family, which over the past few years has sold family land on both sides of the 1100 block of New Jersey, and on L Street where Onyx is now going up. (And their father once operated a 5&10 where the Courtyard by Marriott now stands.) In the meantime, they're talking with restaurants about perhaps renting some of the existing space to sell "quick food" for ballpark goers.
More posts: marketdeli, Courtyard/Marriott, Onyx, square 740
 

The speed of events is leaving me breathless these days. Today JPI held a groundbreaking ceremony at 909 New Jersey Avenue, where digging is about to get underway for the 237-unit residential building to be built on that block (former home of the Nexus Gold Club). You can see the obligatory photos of Dignitaries-With-Shovels here. (Yes, I did get my invite after all. Thank you!)
But there was big news tucked into the press release touting what JPI is now calling its "Capitol Yards" neighborhood along I Street (with 70 and 100 I Street across the way from 909 New Jersey about to sprout out of their deep hole): the announcement of plans for 23 I Street, a fourth JPI residential project on I Street, slated to have 421 residential units and as much as 35,000 square feet of retail space. Its location would be on the south side of I Street between Half and South Capitol, from Half over to (and including) the current Wendy's lot. (The moribund Exxon station does not currently appear to be part of the plans.) Construction wouldn't start before 2008. I haven't added it to my main map yet, but I've put up a few boring shots of what the block looks like as of now.
With that, the number of not-spoken-for lots in Near Southeast has just about dwindled to zero. Pretty much there's the block on New Jersey across from Capitol Hill Tower (though Akridge now owns a portion of it), the Exxon at South Capitol and I if JPI doesn't grab it, and the Metro Chiller Plant on the southwest corner of Half and L, which might not be made available anytime soon. (And I'm assuming that the rumors of Monument Realty picking up the Sunoco site at 50 M are true.) Everything else west of 7th Street is now spoken for. So if you were hoping to make your millions in Near Southeast and you haven't already staked your claim, your time's just about up, unless you can wrest some parcels out of some other developer's hands.
UPDATE, 6/11: Five days later, here's the Post's blurb on Capitol Yards.
 

Monday's Post mines the changes in Near Southeast with another A1 story, "The Far Side of Rebirth." No new pieces of news, just interviews with people who've been in the neighborhood a long time, plus some new arrivals (hi Scott!). For those of you arriving here at JDLand.com after reading the article, you might want to visit my Capper/Carrollsburg, Nats Ballpark and Capitol Hill Tower pages for more information on the projects mentioned in the story, and you can also see photos of the St. Paul's AUMP Church, the Market Deli, Bennie Meeks' firewood lot, and even the horse stables under the freeway, and the changes occurring around them that I've been documenting since 2003.
 

Sometime within the last few weeks another of the auto repair shops along First Street closed; this time it's the United Transmission Center, at 1004 First (the red brick building at right in these photos). The property was bought in September by Akridge, but the company hasn't announced any plans for the 11,000 sq ft of land it now owns on the east side of First (it doesn't own the Market Deli on the south end, nor the two other garages on the north end, but now owns everything in between). See my North of M map to see what's on the boards in the section of Near Southeast north of M and west of New Jersey--lots of land now owned by developers, but still waiting to see plans begin to move forward on most of the lots. UPDATE: I should note that the garage has moved to a new location in Northeast, so it hasn't shut down altogether.
More posts: marketdeli, mnorth, square 740
 

The DC Property Sales database runs about six weeks behind the calendar, so it's only now reporting that in late September the John Akridge Companies paid $7 million for six properties totalling 11,145 sq ft on the east side of First Street between K and L, currently home to an auto repair shop and an empty lot. Akridge has owned since the late 1980s an empty lot totalling 3,934 sq ft on this site, so they now own everything in this block of 1st Street except for the Market Deli land on the corner of 1st and L and the two car repair shops on the corner of 1st and K. No announcement so far as to any plans for this land. See my North of M map to orient yourself--and note that the photo at the top of the North of M page shows the block in question, with the two beige brick buildings at left being owned by the William Cohen/Willco Construction Company, and the red brick building and the empty lots to its right now owned by Akridge.
More posts: marketdeli, mnorth, square 740
 
27 Posts:
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