A Couple Quick Items: KIPP DC Proposal, Tall Ship Visit

- The Washington Post picked up on the KIPP DC proposal to build a new charter high school at the site of the Randall Recreation Center at South Capitol and I streets, which is owned by the District government. I wrote a post about the issues surrounding Randall last month and there was also an article about it in The Southwester.

Rendering courtesy of Studios Architecture

- A tall ship from the Swedish navy will be dropping anchor at the Gangplank Marina today for a three-day visit.

A Couple Quick Items: SW Duck Pond Annual Meeting Tonight, SWNA Elections Set for March 9

- The Neighbors of Southwest Duck Pond will have their annual community meeting tonight at Waterside Towers Club Room (907 6th Street) at 7pm. Special guests include Katie Rehwaldt from DPR and Hank Laverly from Millennium Pool Service.

- As it was reported in The Southwester, the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly (SWNA) will be holding elections on Saturday, March 9 for their Board of Directors, which includes President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and eight district representatives. The election will be held in front of the Waterfront Station Safeway. Check here for the list of boundaries for each of the districts as defined by SWNA.

A Few Quick Items: SW Waterfront Legislation Passes, Volunteers Needed to Fill Vacancies, DC United Resolution, Lockridge Library in Bellevue

- The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2297 today, a bill introduced by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton that clarifies the legal status of the Southwest Waterfront, which will help the developers of The Wharf redevelop the waterfront. A provision in the bill allows the Maine Lobsterman memorial to be moved, but it must remain along the Southwest Waterfront near Maine Avenue with a clear, unimpeded pedestrian pathway between the memorial and the waterfront. The bill now goes to the Senate for approval where, according to a press release from Norton, it does not face any obstacles for passage. Rendering courtesy of Hoffman-Madison Waterfront.

- The Southwest Duck Pond is seeking 501c3 non-profit status, but in order to do so, officers must be elected. Secretary and Treasurer positions are still vacant and need to be filled so the application can be completed. The organization wants the non-profit status so it can do fundraising to restore the park at 6th and I Streets. If you're interested, contact the group by email: swdctowncenterwestpark@gmail.com. 

In addition, the editors of The Southwester recently resigned suddenly, so a volunteer is needed to run the newspaper. If you're interested, contact The Southwester by email: thesouthwester@gmail.com.

- Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells introduced a resolution today in the DC Council called the "Sense of the Council Support for D.C. United Soccer Remaining in the District of Columbia Resolution of 2011". The resolution doesn't say how the city should go about keeping the team, however. Rendering courtesy of Akridge.

- According to The Washington Post, the DC Council approved legislation today to rename the new Bellevue library under construction on the corner of Atlantic Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue after the late Ward 8 activist and school board member William O. Lockridge. The library will be named the "William O'Neal Lockridge Library at Bellevue" as a compromise since the community wanted the name Bellevue to be in the name of the library because the old Washington Highlands library was mislabeled. Rendering courtesy of DC Public Library.

A Few Quick Items: New Website Launched for The Southwester, Station 4 Leads SW Revival, United Eyes Baltimore, Bellevue Library Controversy

- A new website was recently launched for The Southwester, which allows readers to view articles from the latest issue of the paper without having to download a PDF (although that option is still available). Readers are allowed to leave comments as well. Although a few kinks still need to be worked out on the new website (i.e. article formatting), it is moving the paper in the right direction.

- The Hill writes a review on Station 4, which opened over four months ago at Waterfront Station. According to the article, the most popular item on the menu is the crab cake. The article mentions that recent events at the restaurant include Neighborhood Appreciation Night, prix fixe lunch ($18) & dinner ($29)specials. Also, there were "True Blood" themed nights leading up to Halloween.

- According to The Washington Post and The Examiner, MLS has sent out surveys to Baltimore area residents gauging their interest in the possibility of DC United moving to the Westport area of Baltimore City. From the Post article:

United has spent all 16 MLS seasons in Washington but club officials have said playing at 50-year-old RFK is not economically viable. Talks with D.C. officials have shown no signs of progress. Buzzard Point in Southwest D.C., near Nationals Park, has been the club’s primary focus. Previous negotiations, involving Poplar Point in Anacostia and then Prince George’s County in Maryland, collapsed. 

- The Washington Post reports on the controversy over the naming of the new David Adjaye-designed library rising along Atlantic Street in Bellevue.  The DC Public Library Board recommended earlier this year that the library should be named Bellevue, after the neighborhood in which it's located (the previous library was called Washington Highlands, which was named after a neighborhood in SE). However, Mayor Gray supports the proposal to name it after William Lockridge, a Ward 8 activist and member of the State Education Board who died earlier this year. The DC Council held a hearing last month to discuss the naming of the library, but according to the article, Ward 8 Council member Barry has agreed to delay the renaming bill for two weeks in order to hear what the community has to say before making a decision.

Editor of The Southwester Resigns

On Friday, Glenn Favreau, editor of The Southwester, announced his resignation. Below is an email he sent making the announcement:

My dear friends,

It is with great sadness that I communicate to you all my official resignation as editor of The Southwester.

I would like you all to understand that this decision did not come easily to me, and is greatly due to two situations:

1. The lack of support by community leaders on the SWNA board and the ANC when recent statements were made against me personally. These leaders decided that they would absolve themselves out of fear I suppose. Subsequently, their option was not for me, but for some odd status quo of allowing such public attacks to take place. The person making the statements was Gene Solon. He made them in public at the ANC meeting where he was allowed to do so, and he subsequently made even more remarks by email to the SWNA board with no repercussions from them. My disappointment is not due to some misguided person making remarks about me, but the total lack of support from community leaders.

2. When I took over the editorship of the paper in April, 2009, I did so with the understanding that I was not going to manage the business end of the paper. To this day, the paper takes in and spends somewhere near $3,500 per month with no business manager (no one to handle ads), no business plan, and no budget, despite my constant requests to remedy the situation. It is part of an organization (SWNA) which has refused to be audited, again despite my repeated requests. This situation is no longer tolerable for me.

I did not work on the paper in order to receive words of appreciation. Although these words help, real support comes in the form of real actions by responsible leaders.

I thank you all for your collaboration for the good of the community. I have always been proud of the group of volunteers who worked on the paper for the good of others and not for personal gain.

Glenn Favreau

January Hill Rag Posted Online

The January issue of the Hill Rag newspaper has been posted online. Starting with this month's issue, I have started writing the South by West article for the paper, which covers topics in Southwest and the Capitol Riverfront neighborhoods. You will recognize most of the content in the articles focused on Southwest since they are adapted from this blog. In addition to the Hill Rag, I write a monthly Real Estate Notes column for The Southwester, which I started doing in October 2009.

A Couple Quick Items

- I wrote about this in the Real Estate Notes article in October's Southwester, but I haven't mentioned it here yet that the Mary E. Switzer Building at 330 C Street is undergoing a second round of renovations. Grunley Construction is doing the renovation work, which includes the modernization of 311,000 square feet of space and the construction of an 18,000 square foot addition, which will add office space to the 6th & 7th floors. Tenants include the U.S. Department of Education, Department of Health & Human Services, and the GSA. HTNB designed the renovated space. Grunley also worked on phase one of renovations, which were completed in 2008. Work began on phase two over the summer and parking spaces have been blocked on 4th Street & D Street. Construction is supposed to be complete by July 2011 and the project will aim for LEED-Silver certification. The D Street spaces have been blocked since August and are scheduled to be available again by mid-December. Above is a photo of the back of the Switzer Building, at the corner of 4th & D Street.

- The sidewalk along 4th Street near the Phase III building at Patriots Plaza reopened a couple weeks ago. Back in August, the closed sidewalk on E Street was reopened to pedestrians. Now, the plaza in front of all three buildings is mostly done. No tenants have been signed yet for the Phase II & III buildings. Above is a photo of the Phase III building, which is just about complete.

October Issue of The Southwester is Available

The October issue of The Southwester is now available online and the paper should be distributed throughout the neighborhood this week. One of the new features of the monthly paper is a column called Real Estate Notes, which is written by me and is my debut in print journalism. Most of the real estate tidbits in the column come from this blog, while news about Near SE is adapted from fellow neighborhood blogger JDLand (with JD's permission, of course). Other new features of the paper include a column by Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells called Tommy's Beat, as well as a column written by lawyer Essita Duncan called Reality Checks, which covers law-related topics.

New Food Options Coming Soon!

- Over the next month, two new restaurants will be opening in the neighborhood. On Friday at 11AM, there will be a soft opening at Hogate's Cafe, which is located on 800 Water Street at the former H2O nightclub (and before that Hogate's). Kristina Noell, a former employee at H2O, will be opening the new restaurant (See a post from February for some background on the project). In this month's The Southwester newspaper, there's a neighborhood dining guide, which includes a description of the type of cuisine planned at Hogate's Cafe. The Grand Opening will be on Wednesday, September 9th at 10AM. Below are the hours of operation, starting on September 10th:

Monday - Friday: 6AM - 10PM

Saturday - Sunday: 9AM - 10PM

- Later in September, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, according to DCist, will open a restaurant in the old Cafe MoZU space called Sou'wester. Back in March, Southwest...TLQTC posted about the new concept, which was tentatively called South by Southwest, but apparently, that name caused problems, since there's an annual festival in Austin, Texas with the same name. While we in DC are more accustomed to Nor'easters, the meaning behind the name Sou'wester is similar - it refers to a storm, or strong wind originating from the southwest.

March Issue of The Southwester is Available

Here's a link to March's issue of The Southwester, which is still in existence, three months after it was announced at the November SWNA meeting that the local paper may have to cease printing, due to a lack of advertiser revenue and the pending retirement of the Editor-in-Chief.

February Issue of The Southwester is Available

Here's a link to February's issue of The Southwester.

January Issue of the Southwester is Available

Here's a link to January's issue of The Southwester.

Will The Southwester Cease to Exist?

After more than 40 years of providing news about the Southwest community, it was announced at tonight's SWNA meeting that The Southwester may no longer exist in its current print newspaper format due to financing issues. Marge Maceda, President of SWNA, said at tonight's monthly meeting that advertising revenue has dropped to a point that the newspaper is now operating in the red. The Southwester has a current circulation of about 12,000 and monthly printing costs average $2,500. Local businesses are the main source of advertising for the paper, but since several businesses have relocated as redevelopment comes to the community, advertising revenue has dropped. Also, the long-time Editor-in-Chief of The Southwester is retiring, so a new editor is needed to keep the newspaper going. Maceda stated that the options for The Southwester are the following: keep the paper as it is; make the newspaper an online publication until advertising revenue increases; or end The Southwester and negotiate with the Hill Rag to dedicate a certain amount of space each month to cover Southwest issues. A few audience members volunteered to help keep the newspaper afloat - including an interim editor-in-chief, ad solicitor, and assistance with creating a business plan for the paper. I will post throughout the week on other topics from the meeting, but most of the topics have recently been covered in this blog, including the Southwest zoning study, the closure of the 9th Street bridge, and an update on Waterfront Station.

December Issue of The Southwester is Available

Here's a link to December's issue of The Southwester, a monthly newspaper dealing with local SW issues and events published by SWNA. Thank you, SWNA, for adding a link to SWTLQTC (OK, so that acronym doesn't sound that great, I'm still working on an abbreviation) to your site!

November Issue of The Southwester is Available

Here's a link to November's issue of The Southwester, a monthly newspaper dealing with local SW issues and events published by SWNA.

October Issue of The Southwester is Available

Here's a link to October's issue of The Southwester, a monthly newspaper dealing with local SW issues and events published by SWNA (Southwest Neighborhood Assembly).

September Issue of The Southwester is Available

Unfortunately, my vacation is over, but that means I can start posting about Southwest again. The September issue of The Southwester, a monthly paper published by the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly, Inc. (SWNA) has been released. In this month's issue, two articles mention this blog as a newcomer to the Southwest DC media scene. The first article talks about three local blogs in the area, including Southwest...The Little Quadrant That Could, Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism-nominated JDLand and SWDC Blog, another new blog on SW development. In the second article, it refers to my prior post about the Southwest Rectangle portion of NCPC's and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts' National Capital Framework Plan. Once I get back into the swing of things, I'll do a post on plans for East Potomac Park as well.