Facadomy No More: From Bad to Worse

Well, it would seem that someone said enough is enough with the facadomy on Irving Street. As you may recall from my earlier post, I was surprised to see this facade being saved in a non-historic district.

A reader also commented that it had been like this for at least 2 years. Well, when I walked past it yesterday, it looks like someone finally decided that something had to be done. Its been replaced by a small single floor structure. I have no idea where this is going, but I can’t say that I like it.

Heated Driveway and Steps … Nice!

I thought this was an interesting idea. The residents on the corner of Randolph and 5th Streets, NW, decided to replace their driveway and sidewalks/steps into their home. This isn’t all that amazing in and of itself … but they went another step further and installed tubing beneath the concrete that will contain heated water in the winter and keep the concrete snow and ice free. You can read some more about heated driveways here>>

Considering that we tend to get a lot of ice in this area, I think this idea is brilliant. Ice is hard to shovel, and freezing rain happens enough that it is definitely a nice feature to have.

Wayan Vota also caught a shot of the installation in progress which you can see below.

Now, both the sidewalk and driveway look like any other example in the neighborhood.

Washington Roadwork, ca. 1920

With all the roadwork scheduled to begin this summer, its nice to see how far we’ve come.

Facadomy in Park View?

I was really surprised to stumble upon this project in southern Park View. Located on the 500 block of Irving, NW, its essentially … just a free standing facade, or what I generally call a facadomy (facade + otomy (medical procedure)).

I know this happens in historic districts, but to the best of my knowledge, that wouldn’t be the case here. It also doesn’t strike me as being anything overly special that couldn’t be recreated if that were the goal.

The only thing I can possibly reason would be that it was somehow easier to get the project through DCRA by doing this, but then again, it doesn’t seem to be an active construction site anymore.

The Half Street Hole

One nice thing about going to Artomatic was that I got a really good view of the now well known “Half Street Hole.”

According to DCMUD, Monument Realty began digging the nearly 2-acre hole across from the ballpark entrance, at the corner of N and Half Street, SE, back in January of 2007. The cavity is the future home to the residential portion of Monument’s Half Street project – a 340-unit residential development. According to the developer, financing for the project is still, well, in a hole, but will soon get built.

While it was reported as recently as last November that the hole was more or less beginning to be filled in, it certainly looks far from filled in to me. It looks like they just put in enough dirt to support create a gentle slop to the bottom.

Update on 14th Street Bridge: Lane Closures & Capacity

Here’s an update on the work to commence tomorrow on the 14th Street Bridge. The number of lanes close depends on the day and the time. Fortunately, DDOT is trying to be accommodating to commuters by minimizing lane closures during those times. The latest DDOT announcement follows:

***TRAFFIC ADVISORY***

14^th Street Bridge Work

Scheduled to Begin Tomorrow

Single Lane Closures Expected Between Rush Hours

(Washington, D.C.) The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is reminding motorists that work is scheduled to begin on the northbound 14^th Street Bridge beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, May 27, weather permitting.  Crews will spend the next five days, including the weekend, preparing the roadway for the first phase of the year-long bridge rehabilitation project.  This preliminary work will include restriping and installing barriers for the lane shifts required to maintain traffic, as well as work on the bascule span of the bridge and the Operator’s Tower.

Throughout this project, DDOT will maintain four lanes of traffic on the northbound bridge during commuting periods, but temporary off-peak lane closures will be necessary.  From Wednesday, May 27 to Friday, May 29, crews will close a single lane on the northbound bridge, between 10:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

Work to Begin on 14th Street Bridge

Following up on the April 30th announcement that DDOT was planning to start construction on the 14th Street bridge is the release below that work will commence this coming Wednesday.

It was reported that Virginia is up in arms because they feel that they were not given adequate notice of the planned renovation. To that, I say two things:

1) This bridge is entirely withing the District. It is the District’s responsibility to repair, and the District has to pay for it. When Virginia coughs up some cash, then we can talk; and,

2) I suspect that stimulus money may be involved. If so, that would explain why the 14th Street Bridge, the 9th Street Bridge, and Chain Bridge are all happening at the same time. Also, if this is the case, the District notified Virginia as soon as they knew work would begin.

The announcement is after the jump.