Audi Field Almost Ready for its Debut

In less than two weeks, Audi Field will be open for its inaugural match where D.C. United will play the Vancouver Whitecaps. On the stadium front, more progress has been made since my last visit in June. For one, the south side of the stadium is more accessible now. Work continues on Audi Way, an extension of 1st Street that curves along the east side of the stadium, which should be completed by the end of this week. Most of the remaining work involves setting up the concessions areas. Work is being done now seven days a week in order to get the stadium finished in time.

🚨 It’s finally July. 🚨 pic.twitter.com/7LRjKh3WoO

— Audi Field (@AudiField) July 1, 2018

Here are some photos of the south part of the stadium.

Retail space on SE corner of stadium

South side of Audi Way still U/C

Street furniture on T Street

View of south facade of stadium

Here are some views on the east side:

Eastern facade from Half Street

Retaining wall covers Pepco facility 

Main gate from Potomac Ave

North side of Audi Way

D.C. United announced today that limited tickets are still available for the inaugural match at Audi Field. A ribbon-cutting ceremony and housewarming party will be held on Monday, July 9 from 4:30 to 7pm. The event will feature speeches from representatives from D.C. United, the District government, and Audi. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at the northwest gate at the corner of 2nd and R streets. Following the ceremony, there will be a housewarming party with D.C. United players, music, games, and food, including a sneak peek of the food offerings that Jose Andres will be offering at Audi Field. While admission is free and open to the public, food and beverage will be available for purchase. There will likely be other events leading up to the grand open that will be announced in the coming days. 

Here's some north and west views of the stadium:

Side view of main gate

A peek behind the gate from R Street

 New plaza on NE side of stadium

Team store on R Street

Northwest stadium entrance

View of western facade along 2nd St.

Field House DC, which will become a pre-game spot for D.C. United matches like The Bullpen is for Nationals games, is now operational on a daily basis during the World Cup. Following the World Cup, the venue will be open on D.C. United match days and will host special events. The entrance to Field House DC is located at the corner of 1st and T streets, just south of Audi Field.  

Main entrance

Seating area

Drink tokens & snacks purchased here

Bar and corn hole

Umbrellas provide limited shade

Seating area & large screen TV

T-Minus 30 Days...

One month from today, D.C. United will host its inaugural match at Audi Field in Buzzard Point, against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Construction in and around the stadium is starting to reach the homestretch (wrong sports analogy) with the pitch now installed, concession areas starting to come into shape, and infrastructure around Audi Field resembling streets in other parts of the city with bike lanes and functional traffic lights along Half Street. Below are some more pictures of the stadium exterior. 

Intersection of R and 2nd streets

View east on R Street

Team store on R Street

2nd Street facade and cycle track

South side of Audi Field on T Street

Meanwhile, DDOT has announced special game-day service to Audi Field, although due to road closures anticipated on opening day, this service won’t be available on July 14. In addition to changing the Navy Yard-Union Station route on a daily basis to L’Enfant Plaza-Eastern Market via M Street starting on June 24, game-day service will bring the Circulator south off of M Street to Half Street with a stop at Half & O streets, then turning left onto Potomac Avenue with a second stop at Potomac Avenue & Half Street serving Audi Field, then across South Capitol Street and left onto 1st Street, SE before turning back onto M Street SE. The route will take this detour east- and west-bound. 

In addition, a new Capital Bikeshare station will be installed in the vicinity of the stadium, although its exact location has not been finalized yet.

Additional Changes to D.C. United Stadium Design

D.C. United recently submitted supplemental materials to the Zoning Commission ahead of its rescheduled hearing on November 28. The hearing was originally scheduled for November 2, but it was delayed after the team got pushback from neighboring developers and ANC 6D about the previous design of the stadium. In a letter dated yesterday to the Zoning Commission, the applicant made changes to the alignment of 1st Street to allow for 14,000 SF of retail along the east side of the stadium as well as parking on both sides of the street. The street now has a curve, which reduces the size of Parcel B, and it will still be closed to vehicular traffic on game days from Potomac Avenue to T Street. Future retail will be added on the east side of 1st Street south of S Street. Along the south side of the stadium, an additional 3,000 SF of retail will be included on the southeast corner of the building which also houses the team offices. The lack of retail and the alignment of 1st Street were some of the concerns neighboring developers had with the previous design, which they thought hampered access to their proposed projects and took away from the potential activation of Buzzard Point. We’ll see if the retail space at the soccer stadium gets filled any faster than the space at Nationals Park, where the 1st Street, SE side of the stadium remains empty eight years after the stadium opened. 

New retail along 1st Street

Besides adding more retail, the revised plan also includes changes to the public plaza, reducing the amount of hard surface and adding landscaping and terraces. The terraced green space will allow for a variety of events on non-game days, such as movie screenings and live performances. Adding green space was one of the requests of the ANC, since the grassy lot (Parcel B) to the east of the stadium is only temporary and will be replaced with a building once a developer is selected for that parcel. The large D.C. United sign in the plaza that was in the previous design was moved closer to the ticket window and the water feature was removed. Also, the entry point at the corner of 2nd and T streets was removed and replaced with a new entrance at 1st and S streets. This entrance was moved to align one of the stadium entrances with S Street, one of the major corridors envisioned in the Buzzard Point Framework Plan. Below are additional renderings of the revised plans.

View north along 1st Street

New S Street stadium entrance

Bike valet at 2nd and T streets

Main entrance to stadium

New terraced green space 

View SW from Half St & Potomac Ave

Aerial view of stadium looking NE

Aerial view of stadium looking SW

Renderings courtesy of D.C. United

Revised Stadium PUD Application

Last week, D.C. United submitted a revised PUD application for their planned 19,000-seat, LEED-Gold stadium on Buzzard Point and released new renderings via social media. Compare to the original filing from January.  The application was revised based on comments from the Zoning Commission back in the spring. In their letter to the Zoning Commission, submitted with the application, the team identifies two major changes to the stadium design, including: 

• A two-way private street will run along the east side of the stadium site. This street is an extension of 1st Street and will be open to the public on non-game days, but closed on days when D.C. United has a match. The street will allow a pedestrian and vehicular connection north-south through the site. It will be 23 feet wide with sidewalks on both sides of the street, ranging from 13 feet to 30 feet. South of S Street, there will only be a sidewalk on the west side of the street. On the south side of the stadium site, there will be a coffee shop and the team offices. 

1st Street extension (stadium is at left)

Main entry gate (1st Street extension & Potomac Avenue)

• The PUD boundary now includes the large plaza located on the northeast portion of the stadium site near the main entrance. The southern edge of the plaza will have a canopy park with trees, seating area and structural canopies for vendors to use or for farmers’ markets. In the middle of the plaza, there will be a sculpture with the letters “D.C. United”. On non-game days, the D.C. United sculpture letters will be surrounded by a splash fountain. The plaza will be activated on match day with a variety of activities, including food trucks and other food vendors, merchandise sales, sponsor booths, kids zone, games like soccer tennis, beer garden, tailgating, live music, and a broadcast set, a la College Gameday. Other yard games will be held on an adjacent parcel (Parcel B) where future development is planned. 

Plaza area on match day

In addition to these major changes, D.C. United addressed some other issues, such as: 

• 3,950 parking spaces in the vicinity of the stadium have been identified for use by D.C. United on game days. These include many of the same surface lots and garages used for Nationals games, as well as street parking. There will be zero parking spaces in the stadium. 
• Pedestrian routes to the stadium have been identified – most fans will use Potomac Avenue via South Capitol Street and 1st Street SE. 
• Development on the adjacent Parcel B will likely start in 1-2 years and may include multiple uses, including a hotel, office, ground floor retail, and/or event space. 

Concept rendering of Parcel B, south of large plaza

• The revised drawings are more clear, refined and have more color. 
• Along 2nd Street on the west side of the stadium, parklets will be installed which will include seating areas and bike parking. 
• There will be 83 bicycle parking spaces and a bike valet at the corner of 2nd and T streets holding up to 150 bikes. 

Below are a few more renderings.

Team store on R Street

Staff entry and ticket office on 1st Street extension

NW entry gate at 2nd and R streets

If approved by the Zoning Commission, construction of the stadium could start before the end of the year and be ready in time for the 2018 MLS season. Demolition was completed earlier this summer.

Renderings courtesy of D.C. United and Populous

Update: The WBJ (subscribers only) reports that the team will issue a RFP for the 2-acre Parcel B within the coming weeks to a select pool of developers, but construction will not start at least until the end of the inaugural season at the new stadium in 2018. However, that timetable could be pushed up based on market forces. 

Buzzard Point Construction Activity

A stroll down 2nd Street in Buzzard Point reveals a much changed landscape. In two years, there will be a new Pepco Waterfront substation and a D.C. United soccer stadium, but for now, the area is a large construction zone. Hardly any buildings exist from Q Street to T Street, save for the historic Dent house at the corner of 2nd and R streets, which is owned by Pepco and will be preserved while they build their new substation. The Pepco substation construction is further along – digging has reached 15 feet below grade and excavation is complete with the foundation being poured (see above photo). Construction should be complete by June 2017. 

Looking NE toward Nationals Park from S Street

Meanwhile, demolition of existing structures at the D.C. United stadium site is complete and utility work is about to begin. The District is responsible for horizontal development, so the District’s portion of the process will be complete this fall.  A demolition ceremony was held in April when Mayor Bowser helped take down a metal-clad building at 2nd and S streets. Once utility work is complete and D.C. United finishes the PUD process for the design of the stadium, the team will be responsible for building the stadium, along with implementing the environmental remediation plan the District devised. The latest estimate of when construction could begin is the end of 2016 with the stadium opening in 2018. 

Both projects are happening simultaneously, so the two are coordinating a traffic control plan with phased street closures as delivery trucks haul away dirt and bring in concrete. There will be an enforced work zone around Buzzard Point with a 15 MPH speed limit in the area; cameras will be set up by MPD; and no construction trucks will be allowed in the residential neighborhood north of Q Street. The traffic consultant from Dewberry presented phase one of the Traffic Control Plan at Monday’s ANC meeting, which involves street closures at Potomac Avenue, Half Street, and R Street.

The Evolution of the Waterfront Substation Design

There have been at least three different iterations of the design of Pepco’s planned Waterfront substation at 1st and Q streets on Buzzard Point. The first design took its cues from neighboring Fort McNair to resemble an office building. After receiving feedback from the community, CORE Architects redesigned the building, but has been further refined since then. The latest design proposal plays on the area’s industrial past & present. Green space, artistic features, and a plaza have been incorporated into the design; however, other tweaks may be made in the coming weeks. The above rendering is the current design, looking at the intersection of 1st and R streets; see below to see how the design has evolved since 2013.  

Design from November 2013.

Same intersection from October 2014 redesign.

The ANC voted on a resolution this week to work with DC Climate Action to create a working group addressing health and safety issues related to the construction and operation of the substation, as well as its proposed size. Pepco is seeking approval from the Public Service Commission to build the substation, which plans to open by 2017 before the existing substation a few blocks away surpasses capacity. Below is a video of how underground transmission lines are installed. These will be built on 2nd Street between Q and T streets, as well as R and T streets between 1st and 2nd streets.

Renderings and video courtesy of Pepco