If you're looking for some light summer reading, the transcript from the July 11 DC zoning board meeting--where changes to the text amendment to the Capitol Gateway Overlay District were discussed--has now been posted. If you can't get enough, you can go back to the June 2 transcript to read the board's first doings with the CG Overlay. It's expected that the zoning board will approve this text amendment at its September 15 public meeting. The Capitol Gateway district is the area where the baseball stadium will be built; however, this amendment does not handle the zoning for the stadium itself, which will have to come before the zoning board as its own case.

If you missed the Near Southeast chat on washingtonpost.com today, you can still read the transcript. It was a lot of fun, maybe I'll get to do it again someday!

Near Southeast hits the bigtime, with a front-page story in Monday's Post ("A Transformed Neighborhood Awaits Stadium") that jumps to two full pages of information and photos about the 'hood. The story gives a great feel for the mood as the land rush by developers transforms this formerly neglected neighborhood. A huge map lists 64 spots within Near Southeast that are being developed, sought after, or are held by developers who aren't divulging their plans. If some of the information and photos seem familiar, that's because your humble Near Southeast webmaster temporarily escaped the Post's Newsroom IT department and helped put together the package. Dana Hedgpeth and I will be taking questions and comments on Monday Aug. 15 at 11 am in a washingtonpost.com Live Online chat, so please join in to talk about all the goings on.

While frequent JDLand visitors will be up-to-speed on much on the content, there are some new nuggets to be found:

The challenge of designing a new baseball stadium that symbolizes "the national pastime in the nation's capital" makes the front page of Monday's Post, in "DC Ballpark Architect Has Towering Test." Quoth the architect: "This stadium is going to be very light and modern and different." The article includes some good tidbits about what planners want for not only the ballpark but the surrounding streets, noting: "The challenge is magnified because the city intends to use the stadium as a catalyst to spur redevelopment along the waterfront, and the Nationals want to ensure that fans spend lots of money inside the ballpark. In addition, the ballpark is envisioned to be an iconic gateway as motorists cross the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge -- an anchor at the city's southern end that must tie into the monumental core."

Lots and lots and lots of new pictures posted on the site: the DOT, Southeast Federal Center, New Jersey Avenue, and Baseball Stadium pages all benefit from field trips I took this weekend into the Southeast Federal Center property (ID required to enter!) and over to Anacostia Park.

From Saturday's Post: "A federal judge yesterday declined to issue an emergency 30-day injunction that would have stopped the District from purchasing or taking 33 properties it needs to build a baseball stadium in Southeast Washington." The judge said the three property owners who had sought the injunction failed to show they would be irreparably harmed if the city bought their land, and that they also failed to convince him they would prevail in their lawsuit. This allows the District to continue working to acquire the parcels in the stadium footprint, with the article reiterating that the city plans to submit offers to landowners this month, followed by 30-day negotiation periods with the owners over prices. (The Washington Times has a similar article about the ruling.)

According to yesterday's Washington Times, officials at the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission still maintain, despite "a growing wave of pessmism among bidding groups seeking to buy the club," that the new baseball stadium will be ready for the 2008 season: " 'There are simply a lot of things out of everybody's direct control right now, whether they be lawsuits and what a judge might do, what ends up happening with the environmental aspect of this, or contracts coming before the council,' " said one anonymous prospective owner. The article also lists some developments: the DCSE commission approved an $11.5 million relocation of Pepco utility lines to help make way for the ballpark; HOK Sport and Devroaux & Purnell, architects on the project, have selected a northeast orientation for the stadium, which will give views of the Capitol dome over the left-field wall; a construction manager to oversee the $607 million ballpark will be selected within three weeks; and DC Office of Property Management will begin making bids on the 33 parcels of land in the stadium footprint later this month. If deals cannot be struck, District officials will begin efforts to seize the land through eminent domain. As the article notes, "But the construction calendar with Major League Baseball calls for a full acquisition and rezoning of the land, as well as an environmental assessment, by Dec. 31 -- just 118 days from now." Tick, tick, tick...!

The Post reports that Mayor Williams has approved the city entering a private financing deal with Deutsche Bank for the new baseball stadium. "Under tentative terms the city would accept a $246 million payment from the bank in exchange for revenue from stadium concession taxes and an annual rent payment from the Washington Nationals. The payment would help cut taxes on city businesses from $14 million a year to about $8 million a year to help finance construction bonds."

Yesterday the National Capital Planning Commission took up the issue of the new baseball stadium, voting that the text amendment to the Capitol Gateway Zoning Overlay "would not adversely affect federal interests" (their normal stamp of approval). According to the Post, among the details decided were: not to allow lights higher than 130 feet; to make sure parking would be inside the stadium and underground; not to require that the outfield walls frame a view of the Capitol dome, and to let the architect of the Capitol and the U.S. Capitol Police have design input in the on security matters and on line-of-sight issues between the ballpark and the dome. (The Post brief seems to indicate that the NCPC's vote has now made the "ballpark zone" official--but there is still a required final approval vote by the DC Zoning Board, which will most likely come at its Sept. 15 public meeting.) If you want to read the entire proposed text amendment, you need to first visit the main DC Register site before this link to the proposed text amendment will work....  UPDATE: A tiny bit more of detail on the text amendment from the Washington Business Journal: requirements that at least 20 percent of the stadium's frontage be for retail or entertainment, that the ballpark be set back at least 15 feet from the street, and that the ballpark scoreboard isn't so bright that it will temporarily blind motorists on South Capitol Street and other nearby roads.  (But, no, this doesn't create a Capitol Gateway Zoning Overlay, this amends it.) WBJ also mentions that the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation is close to issuing an official request for information to developers interested in building around the site, a first step in deciding which companies get to partner with the AWC on forming the 14-acre ballpark district.

If you are looking for documents, transcripts, bills, and other items related to the governmental minutiae of the new baseball stadium, DC Watch's Baseball Issues page has a sizeable archive of links worth trolling through.