Steve Dean

Arena Stage in Southwest DC is currently renovating its campus. They have just provided access to their construction webcam.

An earlier email from Arena Stage describes the project:

"Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is named in honor of an extraordinary gift by Life Trustee Dr. Jaylee Mead and her husband, longtime Arena Stage Trustee Gilbert Mead, who passed away in May. The Center will be a breathtaking expansion of our current building, allowing us to focus on the strengths of our two existing theaters while reinventing the surrounding building and adding a third performance space dedicated to premiering new American plays. Renderings of Arena at the Mead Center are available here."

During construction, Arena Stage has moved to a temporary home in Crystal City, VA at the Crystal Forum. A five minute drive from the current location in Southwest DC, the Crystal Forum is close to Reagan National Airport and one block away from the Crystal City Metro station, which is serviced by both the Blue and Yellow Metro lines.The construction is expected to take until 2010. 

The demolition of the Waterfront Mall in Southwest DC has continued at a rapid pace. As of  February 7, 2008, the buildings are down.

The building that connected to the Safeway took the longest time to demolition. Workers separated it from the Safeway for weeks. Once a large gap was created between the structures, the wrecking ball brought down the rest quickly. 

Waterside Mall in Southwest DC is being demolished to make way for the new Waterfront.

The wrecking ball has been busy. You can finally see up Fourth Street SW from M Street SW for the first time in decades.

The Washington Business Journal reported on Thursday, January 10, 2008 that housing prices stabilized in parts of the DC metropolitan area in December 2007.

"Prices actually rose slightly in the District, and inner suburbs such as Montgomery County and parts of Northern Virginia saw only modest declines in sales prices. Outlying regions such as Prince William County suffered steep drops in pricing and sales volume, according to data released by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems."

While the number of sales is down 12.8% for in the District of Columbia, the sales of condos and cooperatives is up 5.6% over 2006.

In October 2007, Arena Stage announced that they would commence construction on the new Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater beginning in January 2008. The construction fence has been around Arena Stage in Southwest DC as it prepares for groundbreaking.

An e-mail from Arena Stage gave some more details on the project,

"Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is named in honor of an extraordinary gift by Life Trustee Dr. Jaylee Mead and her husband, longtime Arena Stage Trustee Gilbert Mead, who passed away in May. The Center will be a breathtaking expansion of our current building, allowing us to focus on the strengths of our two existing theaters while reinventing the surrounding building and adding a third performance space dedicated to premiering new American plays. Renderings of Arena at the Mead Center are available here."

During construction, Arena Stage has moved to a temporary home in Crystal City, VA at the Crystal Forum. A five minute drive from the current location in Southwest DC, the Crystal Forum is close to Reagan National Airport and one block away from the Crystal City Metro station, which is serviced by both the Blue and Yellow Metro lines.

The construction is expected to take until 2010.