Metro Recommends Developer for Navy Yard Spot

Map It:  Navy Yard 

OH HOW THE NEIGHBORHOOD has changed. Back in January 2003, tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched in bitter cold from the foot of Capitol Hill to the Navy Yard during the run-up to the Iraq War. After marchers reached the Navy Yard's gates — designed 203 years ago by Benjamin Latrobe — they found themselves in Near Southeast, then a desolate semi-industrial D.C. neighborhood.

The only way back: the Green Line's Navy Yard station. Thousands waited to file down into the station at New Jersey Avenue and M Street SE, pictured here in 2004, before a glass canopy was installed over the entrance.

Now, though, the once-sparsely populated area is getting flooded with new development, from the new U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters to hotels to office blocks to the new baseball stadium. And just as the Navy Yard station's west entrance at Half and M streets SE is being rebuilt to handle thousands of baseball fans, the east entrance at New Jersey Avenue will eventually see a new addition rise above it.

As reported by JDLand, Metro's Planning, Development and Real Estate Committee is recommending that the full board OK a plan to let NJA Associates LLC, a subsidiary of Donohoe, develop Metro property at the location.

So if the anti-war protesters ever return to the Navy Yard, they'll find a nearly deserted neighborhood crowded with baseball fans and office workers.

» "WMATA to Sell Navy Yard East Entrance to Donohoe" [JD Land]

Photo courtesy Jacqueline Dupree