AUDIO: The 5.5-acre yards park, on the waterfront in Southeast D.C., is the centerpiece of a new neighborhood that will include new restaurants and a Harris Teeter grocery store. Panoramic composite by Ben de la Cruz
Many nicknames are used for the emerging neighborhood south of Capitol Hill, between Interstate 395 and the Anacostia River.
There is “Navy Yard,” an apt name because it adorns the Metro station and the Washington Navy Yard operates on the neighborhood’s riverfront.
The traffic-snarled Northern Virginia community is slowly being transformed into the sort of lively, walkable community that home buyers and renters increasingly seek.
A neighborhood is taking shape in the blocks surrounding the Washington Nationals’ ballpark as people seek easy access to Capitol Hill jobs, riverfront views and the chance to walk to a game.
As the Red Line begins to bring major development, residents strive to keep their ethnic businesses.
There is “Ballpark District,” used since Nationals Park opened in 2008 at South Capitol and N streets SE.
There is “Capitol Riverfront,” the brand that developers have been pushing to try to attract more restaurants and entertainment outlets.
And there is “Near Southeast,” a term employed by a local blog, JDLand, that chronicles the neighborhood’s every change.
Whatever the moniker, a neighborhood is taking shape in the blocks surrounding the ballpark as more people move there in search of easy access to Capitol Hill jobs, riverfront views and the opportunity to walk to Washington Nationals games.
The neighborhood barely existed before officials of the D.C. government and Major League Baseball agreed to build the ballpark on South Capitol Street in 2004. At the time, the area was a mix of industrial facilities, after-hours clubs and vacant lots. South Capitol Street was notable mainly for drug crime and gang violence. Fewer than 1,000 people lived in the area.
Today, you would never know it. Walk along M Street SE from the Green Line Metro station on a sunny afternoon and there are towering new apartment buildings, a Harris Teeter grocery store under construction and, a few blocks to the south, a 5.5-acre waterfront park with views that rival anything Georgetown has to offer.
“It’s a wonderful place to hang out by the river,” said Andrew Weber. Weber, 35, was an early pioneer of the neighborhood in 2006 when he moved into the Capitol Hill Tower co-op (then new), from an apartment in the Van Ness neighborhood in Northwest. He and his wife now have two kids and a dog, and Yards Park is a frequent destination.
“The fountain is great for kids, there’s an area where you can bring your dog and let them run around. . . . It’s a nice area just to play pitch-and-catch. And they have lots of activities, so a lot of Fridays you can go down and have dinner and listen to music in the summertime,” he said. Another park, Canal Park, is scheduled to open this fall, with plans to offer ice skating in the winter.
Before the baseball stadium was even built, speculators purchased land and began planning thousands of condominiums and a raft of restaurants to take advantage of the riverfront, the Metro station and the ballpark. The recession vaporized many of those plans, putting some companies out of business and forcing others to stop construction. As late as last year, a proposal for a Whole Foods grocery store fell apart, and as any Nats fan can attest, the Half Street Southeast corridor to the ballpark is still lined with empty lots and construction sites, leaving few options for locals to eat, drink or even buy groceries.
Baseball’s arrival did help introduce people to the neighborhood, said Michael Stevens, executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District, which manages Yards Park and cleanup efforts. Stevens said that nearly 3,600 people live in the neighborhood today. But that’s still a long way from the full vision for a neighborhood where forecasters expect 8,100 housing units to be built in the next 20 years.
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