The view from Capitol Riverfront’s 55 M Street, which just signed its first tenant.

The Capitol Riverfront hastened its slow trickle of tenants and businesses during the last few weeks. On Friday, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the city would be taking over a building, located at 225 Virginia Ave. SE on the northern border of the neighborhood. In two years, Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA), Office of Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), and District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) will move into the newly renovated, 350,000-square-foot LEED Silver certified office building.

Yeah, city agencies! Just what a neighborhood needs to generate buzz  and inch onto people’s radars! Thankfully, there have been other new signs of life: As I previously noted, Harris Teeter signed a letter of intent to open a new location in the Capitol Riverfront. More recently—as in last week—the Washington Business Journal reported that a new Italian pizza/salad/sandwich joint will move into the recently completed Velocity Capitol Riverfront condo building.

Read More “Capitol Riverfront Gets New Restaurant, Several New City Agencies” »

Apparently, I missed this tasty news bite: Harris Teeter has signed a letter of intent to open a store in the Capitol Riverfront area (otherwise known as Navy Yard/the Nationals Park neighborhood), the Washington Business Journal reported on Monday. 

Read More “Harris Teeter Coming to the Capitol Riverfront?” »

It’s been six months since Clark Realty pulled out of the Poplar Point project—the massive development that was supposed make  Ward 8 “a destination point for people in the metropolitan area,” as fervent local activist Philip Pannell put it. 

And it’s been roughly the same amount of time since D.C. United started eyeing locations outside Poplar Point for its new stadium. 

People needed some time cool off, understandably.

And there hasn’t been much in the news about Poplar Point since then. But perhaps the project’s starting to pick up steam again.

Read More “City Selects New Advisor for Poplar Point” »

The great thing about Artomatic is that it often introduces people to construction-heavy neighborhoods where there’s not much going on otherwise.

Last year, the event was held in NoMa. This year, it’s in the Capitol Riverfront, home to Nationals Park and…that Five Guys that President Barack Obama visited recently.

Read More “Artomatic Provides Panoramic View of Creeping Progress at Capitol Riverfront” »

As Housing Complex reported earlier, today was the groundbreaking for The Park at the Yards, a 5.4 acre, $42 million park on the Anacostia in Capitol Riverfront.

According to the city’s announcement, the space will include “a riverfront promenade, vast open lawns for community gatherings and outdoor events, gardens with benches and colorful plants, a riverfront courtyard enclosed on three sides by retail pavilions, a canal basin and waterfall, a pedestrian bridge, and the restoration of the historic Lumber Shed building.” Read More “More on the Park at The Yards” »

Slowly but surely, the Capitol Riverfront is taking steps to become a place where people want to picnic, stroll, throw Frisbees, and do other riverfront activities that are drawn into artistic renderings.

Tomorrow, another big project is underway. At 10:30 a.m., the groundbreaking will be held for The Park at the Yards, a 5.4-acre park overlooking the Anacostia River. Read More “Groundbreaking for 5.4-acre Capitol Riverfront Park Tomorrow” »

Yeah, I’m not sure how to react to that number either. I mean 1,584 residents…Is that just super? Or is that terrible? The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District says that this is the estimated population within their boundaries, as of their latest newsletter dated May 7, 2009.

Read More “Capitol Riverfront Now Has 1,584 Residents” »

Neighborhood names are an ongoing fascination for me—from the near dead “Kent,” to the just born “Capitol Riverfront.” So in this week’s edition of Where the hell is blank neighborhood?, I submit a new name: Capitol Quarter.

I just spotted the name in this Washington Business Journal article about an EYA 210-townhouse development supposedly located in…well…Capitol Quarter, described as “near two Metro stations and The Yards redevelopment along the Southeast waterfront that will offer parks, restaurants and retail.”

Read More “Where’s “Capitol Quarter”?” »

Last week, I wrote about the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District—which for those that don’t know is the area around Nationals Park, sometimes referred to as the “ballpark district,” “Near Southeast Waterfront,” “Southeast Federal Center,” “Washington Navy Yard,” and “Navy Yard,” as I wrote in my piece.

Well I just got a press release from the BID about their upcoming first annual luncheon, at which the “State of the Capitol Riverfront” report will be disseminated. There were a few random facts—teasers if you will—on the press release. This one caught my eye:

“The perception of the BID as clean or very clean increased from 6% a week before clean & safe service began in 2007 to 58.4% after one year of operation.”

Others follow.

Read More “Capitol Riverfront…Definitely Cleaner!” »

Michael Stevens, Executive Director for the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District

Developing a Name for the Southeast Waterfront Is Easier Than Actually Developing It

The sidewalks of Half Street SE are loaded with people who are walking by whizzing cars, chatting on street corners, and strolling past bright storefront signs. In short, they’re out and about enjoying their gloriously developed, mixed-use, walkable, center city, riverfront community-as well they should.

But these are not your average living, breathing gentrifiers: They’re artistic renderings on signs posted along Monument Realty’s Half Street construction site. The real sidewalks are desolate. At the end of the block, Nationals Park sits empty, although there’s a security guard out front.

When asked about the best directions to the riverfront, he points up toward M Street and then gestures west. He’s not talking about the Southeast D.C. shoreline of the Anacostia River, which is only about two blocks south, but points instead to the Southwest Waterfront, in an entirely different quadrant of the city.

Clearly, he does not know he is smack within the “Capitol Riverfront.”

Not familiar with this District locale? The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (BID) is hoping that will change. Beginning in late 2006, property owners, developers, and the BID board members began batting around new names to identify the 500-acre area known by a variety of names: “that neighborhood around the stadium,” “ballpark district,” “Near Southeast Waterfront,” “Southeast Federal Center,” “Washington Navy Yard,” and “Navy Yard,” the name of the nearby Metro station. (City Paper attempted to make “Nats Flats” stick, but it never quite caught on.)

In the next 20 years, the Capitol Riverfront BID expects the area to hold 15 million square feet of office space, more than 9,100 residential units, 1 million square feet of retail, restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters and other entertainment spaces, 1,200 hotel rooms, and four parks. Read More “Call It the Capitol Riverfront” »