No deal has been announced by Forest City, so no retailer is officially named, but WBJ does ponder the notion of perhaps the smaller, more boutique "Unleashed by Petco" being the potential tenant.

This would apparently be different from the veterinary offering that may be coming to the Twelve12 apartment building a few steps away, as was discussed during zoning hearings a few months back to tweak the rules so that a vet could be allowed.

We shall see....!

Time to check in again on the conscious uncoupling of Building 213 from the rest of the neighborhood.

The 1st Street frontage now has quite a bite taken out of it (om nom nom), and some demolition is also now underway at the corner of New Jersey and Tingey.

A few closeups, from 1st Street on the left and New Jersey on the right:

Meanwhile, three blocks to the east, on the site of the still-as-yet-officially-named-apartment-project-we-are-forced-to-continue-calling Parcel N, there's a fair amount of downward action as well:

(Beta pages here and here, if you want the open-and-airy version of the details.)

And, for the heck of it, here's what the entrance to the Harris Teeter from M just east of 4th is looking like, with the new bite out of the historic brick wall finished:

The flood wall apparently performed as it should have, protecting the majority of the park from flooding, though a small portion of the boardwalk was under water before the high levels started to recede. There was no damage to any of the restaurants, and the boardwalk and bridge are open.

However, water did get into the park's pump room, damaging the mechanical and electrical systems there. Sayeth the BID: "systems. As a result, the following Yards Park water features will be closed until further notice – the Canal Basin pool, the dancing fountains and the waterfall."

This puts a damper (sorry) on the original plans to re-open the water features in time for the beginning of the Friday night concerts on May 9. At this point, they don't expect the pool, fountains, and waterfall to open before May 23rd.

On the bright side, Canal Park did not suffer any flooding, and today the fountains there have been turned on for the summer.

If I were in control of this demolition, I'd have started by punching through right in front of the mouth of the dinosaur on the south end, but that's just me.

I've started an expanded photo archive that isn't too extensive right now but eventually will include before-and-afters of most every vantage point that this building is visible from--as I've said before, I'm not sure people will realize how much this building dominates the neighborhood until it's gone. I can't wait to not see it. And I'll certainly be continuing to document its demise.

* MORE CBS RADIO: WBJ provides more information on CBS Radio's move to 1015 Half Street, which was officially announced on site by the mayor and other poobahs on Monday. A CBS Radio exec is quoted as saying that the street-level studio and performance area "will allow an unfettered look into how we operate and provide fans of our stations with the chance to meet some of the top names in the music business and our own beloved personalities.” Another quote says that CBS Radio "wanted a ‘Today Show’ type street-level studio and the only place they could get that was in the city.” Construction on the space is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

* MORE XAVIER: Not exactly sure why the Wall Street Journal is so all-over the Barracks Row Entertainment bankruptcy, but here they are again with more details: "Lawyers for eight restaurants including Hawk ‘n’ Dove, Molly Malone’s and Boxcar Tavern [and Park Tavern and Willie's] said in new court papers that Xavier Cervera, who became a consultant for the restaurants in August after selling the restaurants in late 2012, intentionally hindered their performance," so that the new owners would struggle to make payments and then Xavier and his partners could retake the properties. There's a battle over a scooter, too.

* MORE RIVERWALK: DDOT announced this week that work is about to begin on the four-mile-long stretch of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail from Benning Road through the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens to the DC/Maryland line.

* MORE FAT: Mark your calendars, the Tour de Fat returns to Yards Park on May 31. (Yes, the link includes the beer list.)

* LESS INCENTIVE: In the latest step to make all my work completely unnecessary, you can now go back in time on Google Street View. (But it's only to 2007, so at least my 2003-2007 photos aren't totally useless.)

June 5, The Sandlot

June 12, Happy Gilmore

June 19, Dodgeball

June 26, Wimbledon

July 10, Balls of Fury

July 17, Space Jam

July 24, Invincible

July 31, Bend it Like Beckham

August 7, Rudy

August 14, A League of Their Own

August 21, The Blind Side

September 4, Moneyball

And Yards Park will once again have its Friday summer concert series, beginning May 9. The concerts run from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, and feature a lineup of top-40, country, salsa, pop, bluegrass, and reggae.bands chosen by OnTap Magazine:

May 9, Jimi Smooth

May 16, Monster Band

May 30, Tour de Fat concert

June 6, Sam O

June 13, Texas Chainsaw Horns

June 20, Sin Miedo

June 27, DC Jazz Festival

July 11, Scott's New Band

July 18, Framewerk

July 25, Jah Works

August 1, White Ford Bronco

August 8, Back to Zero

August 15, 19th Street Band

August 22, Cazhmiere

September 5, Crowded Streets

September 12, Jeff From Accounting

For more information, visit capitolriverfront.org and yardspark.org. These will also be on the JDLand Events Calendar, once I wade through the lists.

* MORE NEW NEIGHBORS: The move of CBS Radio to 1015 Half Street, rumored in February, is now confirmed, both in my inbox and now in WBJ. Mayor Gray is holding a press conference with various officials at the building Monday mornng. The radio folks are taking about 33,000 square feet on the second floor, and WBJ says they "will also lease about 3,000 square feet on the building's ground floor for use as a performance studio to host talent planning to play other venues during tour stops in D.C." (Maybe passersby will get to press their noses up to the glass to see who's there!) CBS Radio will be joining the National Labor Relations Board at 1015 Half, which announced its lease of 143,000 square feet in January.

* MORE BEVERAGES: Today's DC Register has two notices of alcoholic beverage license applications of note, both at the Yards. One is for 100 Montaditos, the Spanish small sandwiches restaurant coming to the Boilermaker Shops, and TaKorean, which will be bringing its Korean-style tacos to Twelve12. The apps say that Montaditos will have 74 seats, and TaKorean will have 60 seats, along with a 14-seat sidewalk cafe.

Now I shall return to watching the rain.

* PUMP IT UP: City Paper reports that DC Water is soliciting bids for the design of a new headquarters, which would move from Blue Plains to a new building atop the existing O Street Pumping Station. (NOT the beautiful Main Pumping Station just to the north!)

And, if one looks at the renderings that Forest City released during its quest for zoning approval to develop three blocks around the station, you can deduce that this idea did not crop up in the last few days. The rendering above shows the O Street station in the right foreground, and you can see how it does look similar to the description reported by City Paper: "[It] will have five stories of offices perched above the pumping station. The offices will be supported by columns; there may or may not be a small gap between them and the pumping station."

(Note that this is a separate issue from the stalled drive to move some of DC Water's operations before Forest City can start work on the proposed movie theater there.)

Here's the solicitation itself.

* THUMBS UP: The Zoning Commission has issued the final orders to allow veterinary hospitals in the Southeast Federal Center Overlay and for the Trapeze School to move to New Jersey and Tingey.

* BOTTOMS UP (OR NOT): An application for a Class C liquor license is now in the pipeline for the The Big Stick, the new restaurant coming later this year to 20 M Street, The application describes the venture thusly: "A sports bar featuring an alpine lodge theme and décor serving casual foods such as bratwursts, sausages and kielbasas, salads, sandwiches, wraps and crispy oven-baked macaroni and cheese. Occasional DJ. No nude performances."

That's all that's up with me. What's up with you?

(And yes, this "Yards West" thing is new, but it does make some sense, given how the properties along 1st Street are mostly separated from the heart of the Yards between 3rd and 4th.)

As shown on the graphic Forest City provided to the Zoning Commission, the four parcels along N Street just east of 1st dubbed F, G, H, and I currently have a maximum allowed height of 110 feet, while to the north, south, and west there's a 130-foot maximum. (There's also a density difference that caps Yards residential development at 6.0 FAR versus 7.0-8.2 in the Capitol Gateway (CG) Overlay.)

This means that the SEFC Overlay permits less height and density than on the surrounding properties because, Forest City says, "no one fully anticipated the success of the tremendous public and private investment that is transforming the area."

Further proposed text amendments would "require Zoning Commission design review for any property utilizing bonus height and density for residential use" and would "authorize deviations from the ground-floor preferred use requirements, only after approval from the Zoning Commission."

During the zoning hearings a few weeks back to allow some changes to the NGA building site (known as Parcels A, F, and G, but which for now I just call Parcel A because I'm lazy), it was mentioned that Forest City was in the process of hiring an architect to design a residential building on Parcel H, which is on the southeast corner of 1st and N, with hopes of beginning development in 2015. Though I'm guessing they'll want to find out whether they can build to 130 feet instead of 110 before finalizing that design.

More as it develops.

Ground zero for the new offerings is 1st Street between M and N (coincidentally, right where all those fans going to Nats Park will see them!).

Skanska has put up a new fence on the west side of the street and big ads for its 99 M office building (which also now has a web site, and the first clear rendering I've seen of the building). Click to enlarge:

Then, across the street, the Yards folks have unveiled their new logo along with other avatar-ready design elements and hipsteriffic promo photos:

A few blocks away, on the Tingey Street fence that will partially prevent me from watching the construction of Parcel N (boo), ads for the Twelve12 apartment building offer several tweet-appropriate slogans, though I will try to not add a magic marker-ed hashtag to "Find Your (#)Awesome."

I also got updated photos of the under-construction Park Chelsea and River Parc apartment buildings, but since they don't have new pretty signs on their fences they don't make the front page this time.