The X2

Rendering of 1625 Benning c/o Valor Development. Valor Development is looking to construct a 303 unit apartment building across from Hechinger Mall on Benning Road NE. PGN Architects are the architects for the project. A. Morton Thomas and Associates are acting landscape architects and civil engineers. Bozzuto will ultimately mange the property. The "Valvaere" would be located at 1625 Benning Rd NE, consolidating nine parcels including what is now Trinidad Baptist Church and attached surface parking lot. The Valvaere will actually be comprised of two buildings; a nine story, 90 foot tall building facing Benning Road, and a 3 story, 38 foot tall building facing 16th St NE. About 7,000 sq ft of ground floor retail is incorporated into the plans. 100+ on-site parking spaces would be provided in a below grade parking lot. There will be over 100 bike storage spaces as well, protected, inside the building. Bird's eye view of Benning Rd. Rendered with Google Earth©...

We won't have this view for long. Wondering if the tree will survive. The triangular shaped parcel at 1401 Florida Ave NE has been an active construction zone for several months now. Work has finally reached ground level and is set to rise 70+ feet above H Street and Florida Ave NE very soon. The new building will be six stories tall and mixed-use. There will be 28 residential units above one level of retail, likely including at least one restaurant. The building will contain a mix of one and two bedroom units. The big zoning issue for this structure was the fact that there will be zero parking spaces on site despite the number of planned residential units and presence of retail. The architecture is very indicative of the new multi-family buildings on or near H Street; prefab facades using earth tones and black, including glass, without many architectural nods to older surrounding buildings. The mostly cleared site from April 2016. Rendering of H Street facade....

Two Boots Pizza will be located at 1025 H Street NE. Two Boots Pizza has announced its impending arrival to Atlas District with a few vinyl banners hung on the facade of 1025 H Street NE. Two Boots is a New York City based chain with New Orleans roots. There are 15 locations thus far (the first opened in 1987), so this is not a small time operation. The closest restaurant DC is in Baltimore, with most of them in Manhattan. They do have two restaurants in Los Angeles, however. The concept seems to have wide appeal and the owners plan more stores in LA and in the DC-Baltimore corridor. Two Boots has a great website and just watching the short video in the "About Us" section left me with good feelings about the owners and how they run the place. Things I like: they have a dedicated web page for artists that produce works featured in the restaurants; the  menus include pizzas inspired by The Dude , Big Maybelle , and Cleopatra Jones ; there are two vegan pizzas (h...

I had only been to the H Street Festival twice before, and the last visit was 2009. As a new resident to Carver, I was excited to return not as a visitor, but as someone who is that much closer to connecting with neighborhood traditions in a meaningful way. I spent almost all day there, from about 12:30 PM to some time after 7 PM.  Some personal highlights were: Meeting friends in the crowd -- planned & unplanned, eating both lunch and dinner at the festival, enjoying drinks on two different patios (Imm on H and Ben's Chili Bowl), hearing live music from blog friends Atoms Apart and DC legends Rare Essence, walking something like 5 miles over the course of being at the festival, seeing everyone's awesome clothes (I was in regular t-shirt and shorts), and generally reveling in what now seems like DC's best neighborhood street festival.  The festival seemed to go well after the 7PM endtime! Atoms Apart . Good Stuff! Ten01 restaurant is now Ben's U...

Stating this past Sunday September 18, the DC streetcar began every day operation. For the previous six months, the streetcar ran only Monday - Saturday. I found myself wanting to hop on to run errands (or just get out of house) on Sundays and been reminded half way out the front door that I should look for the next bus instead. However, as of today, the streetcar is running seven days a week with the added bonus of moving to 12 minute headways, down from 15 minutes. Although I did like the predictability of having trains leave Union Station on every quarter hour (4:00, 4:15, 4:30, etc), I like shorter headways better. If they could possibly get that time frame down to 10 minutes, that would complete the loop for the first phase of streetcar implementation, for me anyway. The hours for streetcar are now:  Monday-Thursday: 6:00 a.m. – midnight Friday: 6:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. Saturday: 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. Sunday (and all holidays): 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.  ...