As part of the rules governing their creation, the lots will be open for general paid parking during non-game times, and can also be used for "a seasonal or occasional market for produce, arts or crafts." These lots should yield somewhere between 670 and 720 spaces. Eventually these locations will be home to new apartment buildings along Third Street and both a new office building and townhouses on the Capper Seniors site; the parking lots themselves are only allowed until 2013.

You can find out more background about parking plans for baseball on my Stadium Parking and Transportation page, though no specifics have been announced yet as to which lots the Nationals are planning to use for season-ticket holders.

UPDATE: I'm hearing that work on the Third Street lots should get underway in December, and on the Seventh and M lot in January.

* The Post reports that there is a group trying to launch a "Congressional Bowl" college football bowl game, where one of the teams would be a service academy, and which would be played at either RFK or Nationals Park. The NCAA should give its answer in May of 2008.

* In a story mentioning the problems being encountered by cities trying to sell municipal bonds because of the "credit crunch" mentions that DC's "A" rating means it is probably going to have to pay a higher interest rate on a $350 million bond issuance next month that will fund, among other things, the rebuilding of the 11th Street Bridges, though the city locked into a low interest rate on the $355 million bond issued last year for the ballpark.

* None of the 24 DC schools proposed for closure in the mayor's plan are in Near Southeast (Van Ness Elementary School closed in 2006), but I'll note that Southwest's Bowen Elementary is on the list, which brings to mind the continued wrangling over the fate of the move of the MPD First District police station off its current location in Southwest to allow for the construction of the new consolidated crime lab. At various times this fall, there has been discussion about 1D moving to a school building in Southwest (after plans to move them to the Post Plant at 225 Virginia Ave. SE fell through) and perhaps Bowen's closure clears the way for this. UPDATE: Oops, I missed that Phil Mendelson is quoted about the Bowen closing in today's Washington Times, wondering whether Bowen was picked to be closed because it needs to be, or because the city wants to put MPD there. (Though I remember hearing talk of either Bowen or Amidon as possible closures long before the MPD question.)

* My Ballpark and Beyond column this week talks about the opening of 400 M (Capper Building #2), the rash of stolen cars, and the ballpark liquor license application.

* One more addition: The DC Sports and Entertainment Commission is asking the city council for more money, says the Post, because its budget will suffer thanks to the move of the Nats from RFK to South Capitol Street, thanks to the loss of the $2 million a year that the Nats were paying to the DCSEC for renting RFK. The team will pay $5.5 million in rent at the new ballpark, but that money will go toward paying off the construction bonds.