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More to come when news stories are posted, but I can report that the city council today passed without debate PR 16-852, the resolution to sell some of the stadium property right along N Street to developer Herb Miller, so that he can build not only the 925 parking spaces required by MLB but also a mix of residential, retail, and hotel offerings. (Without debate! Will wonders never cease!) Now the real fun begins, seeing whether he can actually pull this off on schedule and on budget. While it's quite a gamble, I don't think there's many residents who would have preferred two aboveground parking garage-boxes rather than mixed-use offerings in this location. Now we'll just see whether the gamble pays off. Batter up, Herb. UPDATE: here's the Post story, including that news that Miller "intends to produce the first $5 million or $6 million [of financing] in September to start excavation of the land, and the bulk of the financing would come by Dec. 1." UPDATE, 9:48 am: And here's the WashTimes story. UPDATE, 7:39 pm: And a late addition, this Examiner story says what I've suspected all along: "In its unanimous support of developer Herb Miller's project, to be built on two city-owned parcels adjacent to the ballpark's north end, the council sent a message, members said: Major League Baseball has long had the city over a barrel, but not in this case. " 'It's the first time the council has stood up and said, "This is ours," said Ward 5 Council Member Vincent Orange. "These are our development rights." ' "

Do not adjust your monitor, the Near Southeast home page has indeed grown wider. Blame it on the developers--I ran out of ways to keep adding all these projects to the neighborhood map in its old incarnation, and finally had to increase its size. For those of you running resolutions like 800 x 600, I apologize, but my options were limited. If it makes you feel any better, the news items column is now slightly wider, too. But I do think the revamped map now also conveys a bit more information at first glance, which should be helpful.

WTOP has a short piece about the Navy Yard Metro station, talking about what needs to be done to get it ready for the onslaught of Nats fans in 2008. They say it can currently handle 15,000 people an hour (the same as Stadium-Armory), but that they'd like to add "Another elevator ... an additional set of stairs, and another escalator from the mezzanine down to the platform" (quoting Dan Tangherlini). But so far, no funding.

Donohoe appears to be continuing to move forward with its office project on New Jersey Ave., now christened 1111 New Jersey (just north of the Navy Yard Metro station at New Jersey and M). A page on the Donohoe Real Estate Services web site describes the project: 146,000 sq ft, 12 floors, designed by WDG (who've also designed a pile of other buildings in Near Southeast), and delivery in 2008 (which would mean that construction would need to start by early 2007). At this time, the project doesn't include the land still occupied by St. Matthew's Baptist Church at New Jersey & L--I've heard through the grapevine about negotiations over the past year or so, but apparently no deal has been reached. (I haven't yet created a page for this project, I'm waiting a bit to see if anything changes with the church.)

Another item to add to your busy Zoning Commission calendar: The Zoning Commission has placed on its July 10 agenda the new office building project at 250 M Street--it is actually part of the Capper/Carrollsburg planned unit development, so this is coming before the Zoning Commission as a second-stage PUD. UPDATE, 7/11: The second-stage PUD was approved for setdown; a hearing date should be set before too long.

The second-stage PUD hearing for Florida Rock has now been scheduled for Sept. 18, having been originally slated for December 2005 but then postponed. Reading the two announcements (Dec. and Sept.), it doesn't look like there's been any significant changes to the application (though it might be hard to tell from these documents). My Florida Rock page has renderings of the plans for the development, taken from the documentation provided to the Zoning Commission last year. Note that this PUD was supported by ANC 6D 7-0 at it's November 2005 meeting--at this meeting, it was predicted that construction would begin in 2007 (moving east-to-west), but I don't know if that's still operative.

From the Post: "The D.C. Council's Economic Development Committee voted unanimously yesterday to transfer to developer Herb Miller development rights to two parcels of public land next to the Nationals stadium site in Southeast Washington." The full council will vote on the measure today, PR 16-852.