Among the examples in the article are three delayed projects near the ballpark--WC Smith's 250 M Street office building, the residential and hotel portion of Monument's Half Street project, and also the Corcoran's Randall School development at Half and I, SW (which Monument pulled out of recently): "Perhaps no area is more central to the District's long-term ambitions than the streets around Nationals Park. At every opportunity, Fenty talks of a cosmopolitan destination featuring new parks, offices, stylish apartments and restaurants, all of it along the Anacostia River. Yet, how soon that vision materializes is fraught with uncertainty."

(Full disclosure: I provided a bit of basic status on ballpark-area projects for the piece, hence the "contributed" line.)

Some additional perspective: Certainly there's a slowdown afoot. (It's almost like there's some sort of cycle of boom and bust in commercial real estate!) I've been joking that I should just put a "Gone Fishin'" sign up here at JDLand during 2009, and come back in 2010 to see what's cooking, because other than the first offerings at the Yards and perhaps Canal Park {cough}, I'm not expecting much to get underway in the next little while. On the other hand, Capitol Quarter is moving forward, 1015 Half Street is now out of the ground, Diamond Teague Park is expected to open in the spring, and 100 M and 55 M and 909 New Jersey and Velocity will all be opening their doors before long, and perhaps the lure of another season of baseball will get some retail into the empty ground-floor spaces of those buildings and 20 M.

So, it's not like tumbleweeds are blowing down M Street or vines are growing on buildings a la Logan's Run--and it would be hard to make the case that it's the neighborhood's fault or the stadium's fault when the entire region is feeling the pain. The expectation would be that when the market improves, development in Near Southeast should pick up again. But we'll all just have to wait and see, won't we?

* On Thursday (Dec. 4) the WMATA Customer Service, Operations and Safety Committee will be voting to approve a public hearing on the plan to end the N22 bus line that runs between Union Station, Eastern Market, and the Navy Yard station entrance at New Jersey and M. The District is planning to replace this bus line with a new Circulator route covering the same route, and also adding in a stop at the new US Capitol Visitors Center. If approved, the hearing would be held in January, and the expectation is that the Circulator route would be in place by Opening Day 2009. Read my previous posts on this change here and here.

And, here's two "Tweets" from Friday of terribly important breaking news items: (follow me on Twitter to get these as soon as I post them, or be sure to check the Twitter box at the upper right of the JDLand home page)

* Not sure when this happened, but the Capitol Skyline Hotel at South Cap & I isn't a Best Western anymore.

* Holiday snowflakes hung from the streetlights on M Street. Festive!

UPDATE: One more that I forgot: tomorrow (Tuesday), the Taxation Without Representation Street Renaming Act will get its first vote in front of the city council.