I didn't really intend to go completely off-grid for a long weekend, but a road trip to and from north Florida didn't leave me much time or energy for blogging. What did I miss?

Yes, it's time for another batch of updated construction photos. This is a tough stretch of year to take these--the sun never gets very high in the sky, so anything facing due south is about impossible to get without glare. And, for places like Canal Park, it's hard to even get some locations out of the shadows long enough to get a photo that you can decipher. But you can see (below left, and on the project page) a couple of shots of the progress on the park's pavilion where the Park Tavern restaurant will be housed, along with plenty of shots vaguely showing the other ongoing ground-level work. Meanwhile, at Capitol Quarter (below right), they continue to just zip right along, with framing now well underway on the north side of L and around up 4th, and prep work for foundations continuing in the project's final block, on the south side of L.

Jonathan O'Connell has a piece in Monday's WaPo Capital Business about Artomatic's search for a 2012 home, and how the organization wants to replicate the success of the 2009 version at the then-vacant 55 M St., SE: "This year's search is down to about four buildings, two near Nationals Park: 1015 Half St. SE, an empty 414,000-square-foot building being purchased by Prudential Real Estate Investors; and the former offices of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, at 101 M St. SE. Artomatic also is considering the People's Building in Northeast, and another location in Crystal City."

A little birdie tells me that the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency folks are having a "site closure ceremony" sometime next week for their operations on the southeast corner of 1st and M, SE. (You know, the place with hardly any windows and the guys out front with guns.) As part of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, their operations have moved to swank new digs down at Ft. Belvoir.

Clark Construction has delivered the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus at Ft. Belvoir, says CityBiz Real Estate.

It can be hard to get much information when you're dealing with one of the more cloak-and-dagger-y agencies of the US Government, but word is filtering out that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has begun the BRAC-mandated move of its employees from the windowless fenced-off building at 1st and M SE to its $1.7 billion new Campus East facility in Springfield.

This Post story today on the plans to move 19,000 defense workers out of the immediate DC area to Ft. Belvoir and to that big honking new building going up at I-95 and Seminary Road gives me an excuse to catch up readers who maybe haven't been reading about Near SE for years and years about the neighborhood's own BRAC-mandated move. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which occupies the lovely all-but-windowless building on the southeast corner of First and M, is scheduled to move to a new campus at Ft. Belvoir, with a legislated deadline move-in date of Sept. 15, 2011. According to their FAQ, NGA will be closing their existing sites (including other ones in Bethesda and Reston) "from late 2010 through 2011." Given how supersecret NGA is, I'm not sure we'll know exactly when they're moving until we see U-Hauls pull up to the back door. (Though if someone wants to whisper any specifics in my ear....)

A couple small things from the past few days:

* The Post has an article on how today's Nationals game against the Brewers is the second of only two weekday afternoon games at Nationals Park this season. " 'We love afternoon weekday games but had to hold off this year due to the uncertainty about daytime parking availability,' Nationals President Stan Kasten said. 'We'd certainly like to have more next season, but no decisions have been made about '09.' " The article also talks to hookey-playing grownups who miss these games. Given that it's a holiday, and the gorgeous weather, and Sunday's second-highest-of-the-season attendance (35,567), this final weekday game might see a pretty big pile of people.

The planned departure of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from the big windowless white building at First and M remains on track, with a groundbreaking held yesterday at Ft. Belvoir for their new home at the Engineer Proving Ground. Under the Department of Defense's Base Realignment and Closure Act, NGA's various facilities around the DC area must be relocated to Ft. Belvoir by Sept. 15, 2011; NGA's FAQ on the move says that they expect to begin closing their existing sites in Near Southeast, Bethesda, and Reston in late 2010. Once they are out of First and M, that site will be redeveloped as part of The Yards, most likely as an office building that presumably won't get you sent to Guantanamo if you try to take pictures of it.