4 Blog Posts

It's probably worth a quick entry to remind interested folks that tomorrow (Wednesday Dec. 13) is Mayor-Elect Fenty's Ward 6 Transition Townhall Workshop, at the King Greenleaf Recreation Center, 201 N St. NW, from 6:30 pm - 9 pm. (Of course, obsessively checking my Upcoming Events calendar is another way to keep up with what's on the schedule.)

The agenda for last night's ANC 6D meeting wasn't made available before meeting time, so I decided to take a chance and skip the session (even though I normally adore subjecting myself to the psychological equivalent of having 2-inch nails driven into my eyeballs for a couple of hours). And it sounds like I picked a good one to miss, because my sources tell me that once again a fight over an alley closing dominated the proceedings, this time being another go-round on Monument Realty's 55 M Street project on the west side of Square 701. Monument was looking for the ANC's support in advance of their Jan. 11 Zoning Commission hearing; last night the ANC's commissioners voiced concerns (which were also voiced in the past when Monument asked for support for its alley closing bill) that Monument's proffered community benefits package is insufficient--as currently constructed, it includes a $10,000 contribution to the Southwest Neighborhood Association's Scholarship Fund, a $50,000 contribution to the local schools, and a commitment to set aside a certain percentage of the residential project for affordable housing. Monument's standpoint is that this project is a "Matter of Right" development, meaning that there is no requirement that they do anything for the community, but they are doing so, anyway. The discussion has been tabled until the ANC's January 8 meeting, and the commmissioners also passed a resolution asking the City Council to table the alley closing bill (which already passed unanimously last week on its first reading and is scheduled for its final reading and vote on Dec. 19) to allow negotiations to continue. In less fractious news, there was apparently a presentation by WMATA about its Joint Development Opportunities around the Navy Yard station, including their work with Monument at 55 M Street (on top of the Half Street station entrance) as well as the Chiller Plant at Half and L and a small bit of land near the New Jersey Avenue station entrance. Am hoping to get more information about this....

Correspondent Erik reports that the Sunoco at Half and M, which closed over the summer and saw its underground storage tanks removed soon after, has now been completely demolished. Still no official word on what might be coming to that corner, the rumor of a hotel is all I've heard.... UPDATE: For passers-by wondering about the retro industrial brick building behind the Sunoco--now much more clearly visible from M Street--it's a US Government storage facility.

Don't panic on Tuesday (Dec. 12) if you hear alarms and recorded messages coming from the Navy Yard: it's a test of "a high-powered alert system to determine decibel levels and whether the system is integrated," reports NBC 4. UPDATE: Alert DC says that there will be a test at the Navy Yard on Dec. 14 (Thursday) from 1 to 3:30 pm; another message said there will be tests over the next three days. So, while the specifics are a bit hazy, the main thing is that there will be some noise coming from the Navy Yard in the near future....