Or just check out a few of my favorites below.

The grand staircase coming down from 10th Street.

Maine Avenue section. Roomy bike lanes.

The full schematic.

Stan Eckstut shows design influences for Market Square. (Lydia DePillis)

Last night at Arena Stage's Kreeger Theater, with nearly every seat filled by nearby residents and development types, P.N. Hoffman and Madison Marquette unveiled the framework of their plans for the 27-acre Southwest Waterfront. The vision was breathtaking.

Southwest Quadrant has a great rundown, so I won't go through every detail. In a nutshell: The plans include hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space and ground floor retail, three hotels, and 560 residential units, half of which will be priced at 60 percent of area median income (and half of those below 30 percent AMI). There are several distinct zones:

• Market Square next to the renovated fish market will have a year-round fruit and vegetable market, with what a consultant described as "a little hustle and bustle, clanging of pots and pans."
• The 7th Street park will be a large, grassy expanse surrounded by more upscale restaurants, corresponding with a long, curving pedestrian pier.
• The M Street landing area, connecting Arena Stage to the water, will be a family-oriented space that the consultant likened to Rockefeller Center in New York City: Fun, busy, recreational.
• The City Pier will jut out from 9th Street, accomodating the larger ships and serving as the staging ground for programming like concerts and fireworks shows.
• A grand staircase will connect the 10th Street overlook to the water.
• A large park at P Street on the eastern end of the wharf will be vehicle-free and available for larger-scale sports and games (dog parks and bocce pitches were mentioned).

It's a delicious array of options. But the most attractive element isn't any one piece of the planned development–it's the overall philosophy, as articulated by Stan Eckstut of master planning firm EEK (which counts Battery Park City among its accomplishments, and has also been retained to design the new McMillan development). Eckstut's concept is unabashedly urban; The photos that flashed across the screen as design inspirations included Hamburg, Genoa, Auckland, and–naturally!–Seattle's Pike Place Market, with its teeming pedestrian-centric hive of shops. Eckstut wants the new waterside wharf to be crowded, organic, and somewhat chaotic. "Cars are allowed to use it, when they must–it's not a thoroughfare, and all the cars have to behave themselves. Not us, but the cars," he said. "My vision is, the more congested, the more successful." Traffic along the waterfront will largely run along Maine Avenue, but even that puts alternative modes of transit on par with cars: The developers are working with the city to run a streetcar line through it, along with 10-foot-wide two-way bike lanes.

Eckstut, as well as developer Monty Hoffman, also heavily emphasized the resident-oriented nature of the plan: It's meant to be a neighborhood first, and a tourist destination second. "We're not National Harbor, and we're not Baltimore," Hoffman said, citing those waterfront developments' heavy reliance on chain retailers and outside visitors. In a sign of his commitment, Hoffman said that all those currently living on boats at Gangplank Marina–who had feared for their future in the new development–woud be able to stay, generating loud applause.

A less popular element of the plan, at least with some in last night's crowd, is the height of the planned buildings. Hisses emanated from the crowd when Eckstut said many would reach as high as 130 feet, or 11 stories. Eckstut mounted a staunch defense of tallness. The buildings will have setbacks from their first few stories, leaving the main massing largely invisible to pedestrians. And the density in height, along with underground parking, is what allows for the whole space to be 60 percent open to the public–the bulk is piled on top of itself, rather than horizontally. They're also fairly narrow; instead of the kind of 400-foot-long buildings that you see along K Street, the planned "miniblocks" won't be longer than 250 feet.

The full planned unit development will be submitted to the Zoning Commission in the next couple of months, with public hearings expected in the spring. In the mean time, the developers are taking suggestions for office and retail tenants, 20 percent of which must be local–so if you've ever wanted to set up shop on a world-class waterfront, now's your chance.

(Matt Bevilacqua)

With all the attention given to The Yards Park these past few weeks, development on two of the Waterfront area’s smaller green spaces has gone largely overlooked.

About a hundred people gathered on Water Street SW yesterday evening to attend the opening ceremony for 7th Street Landing, a “temporary park” that will occupy the modest flat stretch between Zanzibar and the Channel Inn, looking out on the Anacostia River until its slated closing in mid-October.

Modeled on sites in Paris, short-lived parks boost public optimism in the area while more permanent local projects gestate, according to Tyson Pitzer, director of investments at Madison Marquette, the District-based real estate company that helmed the venture along with PN Hoffman. In D.C., temporary uses are popping up at stalled developments all over the place, from the former Bruce Monroe school site to Rosslyn’s CenterSpace to movies on the parking lot at 5th and I street NW.

Made up to look like some semblance of a beach – with sand thrown down under a score of yellow lounge chairs and tables with umbrellas, all flanked by a few trees – 7th Street Landing will host jazz concerts each Thursday, food trucks each Friday (District Taco, DC Slices and Sidewalk Sweetsations all showed up for the opening festivities) and yoga sessions on Saturdays. This will go on, Pitzer said, for five or six weeks, after which construction will ostensibly begin on the several hundred housing units and retail spots that the companies have planned for the Waterfront.

A couple blocks away, on Sixth and I streets SW, a much older and quieter park has been enjoying a long-overdue tune-up.
Opened in 1972, Town Center Park West fills up a square block with greenery and a pond meant to attract wildlife. But it had gotten filthy. In April, a group of Southwest residents achieved “partner” status from the Department of Parks and Recreation, and set about forming a plan to clean and restore the space.

Bob Craycraft, coordinator of Neighbors for Town Center Park West, said that he hopes his organization can complete its short-term goal of cleaning the park by Oct. 23, when Arena Stage is supposed to open across the street. (Restoration, he admitted, will take at least a year to begin.)

The group has already repaired the Town Center Park West’s drainage system, which had not been cleared since 2007, and to which some believe a 2009 outbreak of the West Nile Virus could be traced.

It also convinced the city to hire a contractor that works with decorative ponds, instead of the pool company it had previously employed, to maintain the park’s fountain – which with any luck would help attract waterfowl back to the park, and maybe even make it habitable for fish once again.

“You never see more than two ducks at a time,” said Craycraft, “when there used to be several dozen years ago.”

From the Washington Business Journal:

The D.C. Council unanimously approved a land deal for a $1.5 billion redevelopment of the Southwest waterfront Tuesday, conveying 16 acres of city property to a development team led by D.C.-based PN Hoffman and Baltimore-based Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse on a furious last day of voting before the end of the year.

Though the developers face a tough financing environment, the project could bring 770 housing units, 700,000 square feet of offices, three hotels, 280,000 square feet of retail and 150,000 square feet of cultural attractions.

Meanwhile over at SWDC Blog, residents are already starting to compile wish lists of stores and businesses they'd like to see open as soon as possible in the area.

An artistic rendering of the Southwest Waterfront

In fall 2006, the city announced a deal with Hoffman-Struever Waterfront LLC that will allow the company to transform the Southwest Waterfront into a $1.5 billion “world-class mixed-use waterfront destination,” according to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. (For more project details, check below the jump.)

In October, the Washington Business Journal reported that developers wanted 16 acres of Southwest property. “A vote on the land deal is expected in November,” the newspaper stated. No such vote occurred, but now it looks like Councilmember Kwame Brown, chairman of the economic development committee, has decided to get moving with the bill (via yesterday's Journal):

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray jump-started the long-awaited land deal for the $1.5 billion Southwest waterfront project Tuesday, convincing the chairman of the economic development committee to take up legislation needed for the project.

Gray arranged a meeting between the chairman, Councilman Kwame Brown, D-at large, and Neil Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, to discuss the project Tuesday evening. Councilman Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, whose ward includes the Southwest waterfront, also attended.

Brown agreed to reconvene a long-delayed hearing on the legislation on Thursday. It will begin at 12:30 p.m. in the Wilson Building. A mark-up on the bill is scheduled for Friday, and the full council could consider the deal on the last day of voting this year, Dec. 16.

PN Hoffman's website posted this information about the development:

• Housing – approximately 650 units of market-rate residential and 290 units of affordable housing.

• Cultural – a 150,000 square foot cultural component focused on education.

• Hotel – 360 hotel rooms.

• Neighborhood amenities – neighborhood-serving retail such as a gourmet grocery, casual and upscale dining, cafes, shops and opportunities for local, small retailers.

• Parks – 14 acres of parks, open space, and promenades throughout the project.

• Water-focused development – significant improvements to the existing marina and pier facilities.

• Sustainable Design – the first LEED-Silver certified mixed-use project in the city.

• Significant local, small and disadvantaged business enterprises (LSDBE) Participation – participation by Washington DC-based LSDBE team members in all aspects of the project, including ownership. (More from the press release after the jump.)

An earlier version of this post stated that the development team was picked this September. The selection was actually made in September 2006.

Artistic rendering from www.swdcwaterfront.com