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Near Southeast DC Past News Items: Arris/Parcel N/Yards
See JDLand's Arris/Parcel N/Yards Project Page
for Photos, History, and Details
In the Pipeline
25 M
Yards/Parcel I
Chiller Site Condos
Yards/Parcel A
1333 M St.
More Capper Apts.
Yards/DC Water site
New Marine Barracks
Nat'l Community Church
Factory 202/Yards
SC1100
Completed
Thompson Hotel ('20)
West Half ('19)
Novel South Capitol ('19)
Yards/Guild Apts. ('19)
Capper/The Harlow ('19)
New DC Water HQ ('19)
Yards/Bower Condos ('19)
Virginia Ave. Tunnel ('19)
99 M ('18)
Agora ('18)
1221 Van ('18)
District Winery ('17)
Insignia on M ('17)
F1rst/Residence Inn ('17)
One Hill South ('17)
Homewood Suites ('16)
ORE 82 ('16)
The Bixby ('16)
Dock 79 ('16)
Community Center ('16)
The Brig ('16)
Park Chelsea ('16)
Yards/Arris ('16)
Hampton Inn ('15)
Southeast Blvd. ('15)
11th St. Bridges ('15)
Parc Riverside ('14)
Twelve12/Yards ('14)
Lumber Shed ('13)
Boilermaker Shops ('13)
Camden South Cap. ('13)
Canal Park ('12)
Capitol Quarter ('12)
225 Virginia/200 I ('12)
Foundry Lofts ('12)
1015 Half Street ('10)
Yards Park ('10)
Velocity Condos ('09)
Teague Park ('09)
909 New Jersey Ave. ('09)
55 M ('09)
100 M ('08)
Onyx ('08)
70/100 I ('08)
Nationals Park ('08)
Seniors Bldg Demo ('07)
400 M ('07)
Douglass Bridge Fix ('07)
US DOT HQ ('07)
20 M ('07)
Capper Seniors 1 ('06)
Capitol Hill Tower ('06)
Courtyard/Marriott ('06)
Marine Barracks ('04)
 
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33 Blog Posts Since 2003
Go to Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Out and About: The Latest Above-Ground Report
For posterity's sake, here's a quick survey of the late-summer state of construction at various sites--hope you like the Douglass Bridge-based views of the Arris and Dock 79 residential projects, for a bit of variety. Arris is close to having all of its exterior glass installed, while Dock 79 is just about halfway through to its eventual 10-floor height.
Otherwise, the masonry work continues slowly at the Lofts at Capitol Quarter (lower left), while the windows are in at the new Community Center (lower middle) and the Brig beer garden at 8th and L does show evidence of progress.
 

Philz Coffee Announced as First Arris Tenant; Pacers Running Confirmed
Forest City is announcing today that San Francisco-based Philz Coffee has been signed as the first tenant at Arris, the 327-unit residential building now getting its upper levels of glass on the southwest corner of 4th and Tingey Streets, SE.
Philz is described as a company "on a mission to better people’s days by reinventing the coffee drinking experience," with not only "an impressive array of exclusive, handcrafted, flavorful blends," but also excellent customer service.
DC is the first place Philz is expanding outside of California (with another outlet coming soon to Adams Morgan), and this move also will bring back a coffee shop to the Yards, after the recent closing of Buzz Bakery.
The Philz will be located in a 2,400-square-foot space on Tingey Street across from the Boilermaker Shops, and will open in spring 2016. (Arris's retail spaces total 19,000 square feet.)
Pre-leasing at Arris is expected to begin this fall, with move-ins targeted for early 2016, according to Forest City.
Also today Forest City is finally officially confirming the news that's been out there for a while, that locally-based Pacers Running will be taking the final retail space at the Boilermaker Shops, with an opening expected in October. Forest City says that "While Pacers Running stores carry top-of-the-line footwear, as well as running and exercise clothing and gear, along with personalized expert advice and fitting, they have also branched out to be a major organizer and promoter in the area of events aimed at runners who are serious and even not so serious about their running."
Also tucked into the press release is that Due South is expected to open in "late August," and that there is no announced opening date for Nicoletta Pizzeria.
Comments (15)
More posts: Restaurants/Nightlife, pacers, philz, Retail, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

Getting Their Faces Put On: Arris, Lofts at CQ, and Others
The holes in the ground have been surveyed, so now it's time to catch up on the latest neighborhood façade action, starting at 4th and Tingey, where Forest City's Arris apartment building at the Yards is now starting to get the floor-to-ceiling glass panels that will surround the building's top six floors. The photo on the left, from Tingey Street, shows how the glass reflects the sky and clouds when caught at the proper angle; the photo at right, from Water Street, shows them as being a little less opaque. Either way, the glass makes for a substantial contrast with the brick of the building's lower floors.
Speaking of brick, up at 7th and L the Lofts at Capitol Quarter mixed-income apartment project is just starting to get its masonry on--though that's an awful lot of square footage to cover, as you look at that loooooong wall stretching west from 7th Street.
While the beer garden coming to 8th and L known as the Brig will win no awards for its speed of construction, progress is evident (below left), with light fixtures now in place along the roof line. Over at 5th and K the Community Center continues to move closer to looking like its renderings.
And thanks to everyone who stopped to say hi while I was roaming around on Sunday, though I can't imagine how people guessed that the old lady standing in the street taking pictures of construction was me.
Comments (3)
More posts: brig, Community Center, Development News, The Bixby, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

The April Out-of-the-Ground Report
I already looked down this month, now it's time to look up.
* ARRIS: Let's start with the now-topped-out Arris apartment building at the Yards. In addition to its having reached its final height, the masonry work on the five lowest floors of the eastern portion of the site is pretty far along, and windows have started appearing in the second floor.
While the three "pavilions" on the western side (not seen real well in this shot, but check the rendering) will be brick-faced all the way up their eight floors, the east tower's upper façade will be all glass, with an undulation that's obvious even with just the concrete in place.
This building will have 325 rental units and 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and is expected to open in early 2016.
* PARK CHELSEA: It certainly won't win the prize as Speediest Construction Project Ever, and the countdown to the start of leasing has changed its target from July 1 to September 15, but work on the 430ish-unit rental building on New Jersey Avenue does continue. You may have seen the forms with the planets-and-the-stars design that have now been hoisted up to their final perches on the roof--I've been told this is based on Johannes Kepler's "star polygon tessellations," which I concede is way too much education for JDLand to normally pass along.
* LOFTS AT CAPITOL QUARTER AND CAPPER COMMUNITY CENTER: They may not be tall, but they are wide--as is my lens, thankfully. If you are wondering about the concrete portion on the western end of the Loft's construction, that's parking for residents of the building's 195 mixed-income units. The two projects, both along L Street between 5th and 7th, should be completed in 2016.
* THE BRIG: I certainly could have used a drink after the 11 miles of walking I did in two passes on Sunday to properly update my photo archive, but while work on the beer garden at 8th and L to be known as The Brig continues, it still has a ways to go before it begins quenching thirsts. But it's interesting to now start to see the outline of its contribution to the "skyline" along 8th.
The links above have lots more information on each project, of course. And I skipped the Hampton Inn in the roundup, but I wouldn't want it to feel left out.
 

Arris: Topping Out the Next Apartment Building at the Yards
It's a noteworthy enough event that Forest City has issued a press release this morning announcing the final pour of concrete that marks the "topping out" of its 327-unit Arris apartment building at the Yards, on the southwest corner of 4th and Tingey. (So if you see a bit of a celebratory-looking luncheon at the construction site today, that's why.)
The eastern side of the building, along 4th, is 11 stories high, while the three western wings reached eight stories a few weeks ago. When finished, Arris will have 19,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and "some of the best waterfront views in the city."
It's now being said that the project will be "substantially complete" in early 2016.
An initial web site where you can sign up for information on leasing is at LiveArris.com.
Forest City tells me that work on the facade will continue through the next few months, with the expectation that the building will be completely enclosed by the end of the summer.
Also nestled into the press release about Arris is the statement that sometime this summer "development will begin on a 50-slip public marina as the newest addition to Yards Park," with completion expected by the end of the year.
(I was planning to get updated photos this weekend, so dang it, no up-to-the-second shots available. But you can see what it was looking like in late March.)
Comments (3)
More posts: Development News, The Yards, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

Progress Report: Arris About to Break Out of the Box
If you spend much time on 4th Street in the Yards, you can be forgiven for looking at the concrete skeleton rising up next to the Foundry Lofts and assuming that Forest City's Arris is going to just be another boxy DC apartment building.
And that is more or less true--for the five floors that have been built.
But there's for the next six floors, there's going to be a shift, as the design--by Robert A.M. Stern Architects--turns into a very angled, wavy, and even slightly off-centered ultra-modern offering. It's going to look like a glass tower was plopped not-altogether-carefully on top of a rectangular brick low-rise offering.
Look closely at the renderings (click to enlarge), which both show the building from Water Street, and compare them to the above photo, counting the floors already constructed to confirm that along 4th Street the construction is about to look very un-rectangular:
On the building's west side, next to the Foundry Lofts, there will be no glass top, but instead three eight-story mini-towers, with two private courtyards. It's not quite so easy to get photos that clearly show the "reverse-E" outline of the west side, but I did at least try.
The from-above rendering also gives a good view of the rooftop "amenities deck" on the glass tower.
One thing not readily apparently in the drawings is how much taller this building is going to be than anything nearby. So, get ready for a veeeeeery different skyline in the coming weeks.
Arris has 20,000 square feet of retail on three sides of the building's ground floor, facing 4th, Tingey, and Water streets, and the building is scheduled to open late this year or early next year.
There's more drawings and photos on my project page, including some "before" shots of the building's footprint that emphasize how much this block has changed, even before work started on Arris.
Comments (8)
More posts: Development News, photos, The Yards, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

Progress Photos: Dirt and Concrete in Your Stocking Edition
I could blather on in some kind of forced introduction about how the weatherman sold my camera and me a bill of goods this weekend ("mostly sunny," eh?), and how the low sun and weak light and wispy clouds made for less-than-stellar images, but instead let's just jump in.
We'll start with the photo at right, which shockingly reveals that dirt is actually being moved on the northwest corner of 8th and L, where the beer garden now known as The Brig has been planned for such a long time. Clearly work is in the very early stages, but that's a nice change from no progress at all. It's supposed to open in the spring.
Continuing the tour....
Digging continues at the 1111 New Jersey apartment project (above left), with the shoring at far left helping to give a sense of how far down they've gotten so far. (Spoiler: they have a long ways left to go.) And at the Capper Community Center Building House (above right), the foundation on the south end of the site along L Street is now a pretty sizeable structure.
It's hard to get a decent shot of the Lofts at Capitol Quarter construction, because the building is so long, though the wide open space of Nats Lot W helps. Vertical construction continues at the far east end, at 7th Street, while the western end waits its turn. Here's a big version of the latest image, to make it easier to see. (But remember, you can click on all photos to pop up larger versions.)
From there I wandered to the Yards (after rejoicing that the Hull Street Gate to the Navy Yard was closed, so I was able to take photos of the Lofts construction without hassle). The Arris apartment building is now getting its second floor, from south to north, as seen in the below left shot from the corner of 4th and Water. And a different sort of progress is visible a few feet away, in the windows of the northwest corner of the Lumber Shed.
Not pictured is the lunch stop I made at 100 Montaditos, mainly to watch Mr. JDLand's continued march through the menu.
Meanwhile, the Hampton Inn at 1st and N (above left) continues to stand all but alone (I find myself thinking of it as Near Southeast's grain elevator). I also think I managed to capture a construction milestone when I spied its first installed windows. And, up at New Jersey and I, the Masonry Marathon continues at the Park Chelsea (above right), though it does look like that phase may not last too much longer.
There's one other batch of progress photos I took on Saturday, but you're just going to have to wait a bit longer for those.
 

Arris and Lofts at Capitol Quarter, Now Entering the Showy Stage
The skyline is definitely going to be changing in the coming weeks at 4th and Tingey and at 7th and L, as the residential projects Arris and the Lofts at Capitol Quarter are now peeking up from behind the construction fences.
You can see the first floor along Water Street, which is the south end of Arris, Forest City's 327-unit apartment building at the Yards--and here's What It Shall Be from the same angle (albeit overhead):
In other words, get ready for that block to look and feel really different when the building is completed, probably in early 2016. And yes, there's ground-floor retail--about 20,000 square feet of it.
Meanwhile, the Lofts at Capitol Quarter, the 195-unit mixed-income apartment building at 7th and L is on quite a hill, so the west end (left) is starting at ground level while the east end (right) is just now coming out of the ground. And these two photos, which don't make it easy to discern exactly what's going on with the construction, do at least give an indication of the length of the building.
Both my Arris and Lofts at CQ project pages have more photos, renderings, etc.
Also, I hope everyone enjoys the Lofts photos taken from Nats Lot W, because when I left there and walked across M at Hull to take pictures TO THE NORTH of the construction TO THE NORTH, a Navy Yard guard approached me and asked to see my photos, to ensure that I was up to nothing nefarious. This even though I had never pointed my camera anywhere close to the direction of the Navy Yard gate--I had even very theatrically held up my camera with its lens clearly pointing in the opposite direction as I crossed M--and even if I had taken photos of the gate, I was on public property the entire time.
"We have to ask, ma'am," he said; "No, you don't," I replied, so really it's a wonder I didn't end up getting thrown into the back of a Suburban and detained. But there's always next time--I told him that they'd better get used to me being there. At least this time they didn't call the DC cops and have one chase me down a few blocks away like they did a few years back.
#PhotographyIsNotaCrime
Comments (3)
More posts: Development News, photos, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

Fence Peeking, Part I: Vertical Construction at Lofts, Arris, Hampton Inn
As a public service, I bring you the latest views behind some neighborhood fences. And on some neighborhood fences. And even behind some glass.
In fact, there's so many fence-related photos of note that I've broken up all this fence news into multiple posts, so that you don't miss a single fence-related factoid.
(All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them)
Let's begin along L Street west of 7th, where concrete is sprouting for the Lofts at Capitol Quarter, the 195-unit mixed-income building being built by the DC Housing Authority on the older Capper Seniors site.
The footprint is on a decent-sized hill, so what's two levels underground on the project's east end is more or less ground-level at the west end.

Over at Arris, the 325-unit residential building along 4th Street south of Tingey in the Yards, there's an awful lot of square footage to build up, but progress toward ground level is being made.

And the showiest construction these days is the Hampton Inn on the northwest corner of 1st and N. It's even visible now from certain spots inside the ballpark, and here takes up a good chunk of the view northward from Nats Parking Garage C.
(The "Go Nat's" signage has brought much mocking on Twitter from the Apostrophe Police, and hopefully that will be rectified before long.)
Next up: Site work that is (and isn't) happening behind neighborhood fences.
Comments (0)
More posts: hamptoninn, The Bixby, photos, Arris/Parcel N/Yards
 

Catching Up with a Big Batch Of Items on Coming Projects
These are all items I had hoped to write about more fully, but at this point I'd better just pass them along.
* FLORIDA ROCK: MRP Realty is now in control of the land at the Florida Rock site that will become the 350-unit apartment building that is the first phase of RiverFront on the Anacostia. A $65 million loan is expected to be finalized soon, and the developers say that the project will "commence construction by late summer 2014." (WBJ)
* BEVY OF PERMITS: If you browse the teeny type in the right margin of the JDLand home page, you'll already know that building permits have been approved in the past few weeks for the apartment projects at 1111 New Jersey and 1331 4th Street (aka Parcel N at the Yards, aka Arris). A tenant layout permit has also been approved for CBS Radio's first-floor performance studio at 1015 Half Street. Also, fresh off its zoning approvals, developers of the Homewood Suites at 50 M have filed for shoring/sheeting/excavation permits.
* LATEST ON 1333 M: Late last year plans were filed with the Zoning Commission for a three-building, 673-unit residential project on M Street east of the 11th Street Bridges. After some delay, a Dec. 1 hearing date has been set, and WBJ takes a look at recent filings, including some new renderings.
* THE YARDS, ONE PIECE AT A TIME: "Rather than purchase all 42 acres up front, Forest City buys each parcel from the General Services Administration as it is ready to build. The latest: The $28.37 million acquisition of 1331 Fourth St. SE, site of the 327-unit Arris apartment project." Total land costs so far across the Yards? $46 million. (WBJ)
* TUNNEL LATEST: With a council hearing about the project coming on Aug. 26, the Federal Highway Administration has postponed its final decision on the Virginia Avenue Tunnel until at least Sept. 15. But the delay is affecting residents and businesses. (WaPo)
* SCHOOL BOUNDARIES: The planned reopening of Van Ness Elementary next year passes another milestone, as its boundaries get included in the city's revamped map, released earlier this week. The final boundaries cross into Southwest south of M Street, shifting some students over to Van Ness from Amidon-Bowen, "to better align school building capacity with population and with boundary participation rates, and to support racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, where possible." (WaPo)
 
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