Going for the Gold?
The 2024 Summer Olympics could leave Washington with a bounty of gleaming new sports facilities—an aquatics center, a velodrome, even a stadium that could be converted for pro football. Of course, that’s all dependent on our actually getting the games, which is only slightly more plausible than a unicorn exhibit at the National Zoo.
The Caps Outdoors
Even before the season started, the Washington Capitals scored an exciting goal for the area when the NHL announced that the team would host the 2015 Winter Classic. One of professional hockey’s marquee events, the annual New Year’s Day contest matches two high-profile franchises against each other on an outdoor ice rink before a national TV audience. (The Caps last won in 2011.) No word on the venue or the opponents.
Spies on the Move
The International Spy Museum—currently housed opposite the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC’s Penn Quarter—might be moving to Mount Vernon Square. The Spy Museum has its sights on the old Carnegie Library, which had a short stint as the City Museum of Washington, DC, until it closed in 2004.
Toki Two
Toki Underground chef Erik Bruner-Yang has been running a months-long pop-up restaurant, Maketto, in the 44-seat Hanoi House, but the permanent Maketto—slated to open in Northeast DC’s Atlas District this winter—is a far more ambitious project. The mixed-use development will include a Vigilante Coffee bar, retail operations from Durkl founder Will Sharp, a restaurant serving Southeast Asian street food, and a communal market with rotating vendors.
Hi-Ho, Silver
After two decades of planning, nearly five years of construction, and almost $3 billion spent, Metro’s Silver Line is poised to debut in January, connecting more of Northern Virginia to the rest of Washington. The line will reach as far as Reston for now; the extension to Dulles Airport is targeted for 2018.
America Eats Again
José Andrés is reviving America Eats Tavern, once a pop-up in the former Café Atlántico space, now set for permanent quarters in the Tysons Ritz-Carlton in early 2014. Expect similar renditions of American classics, a focus on Virginia wines, and traditional cocktails such as the Moscow Mule.
Coming Up Roses
The first phase of Pike & Rose, a 24-acre mixed-use development in Rockville, is scheduled to open in the summer, with almost 500 residential units, six restaurants, a movie theater, and a 250-seat performing-arts venue from Strathmore.
Liquor Capital
On the heels of New Columbia Distillers, One Eight Distilling—DC’s second distillery since Prohibition—is primed to begin producing vodka, gin, and unaged “white whiskey” in the spring. (Look for barrel-aged bourbon and rye further on.) The name is a reference to Article One, Section Eight, of the Constitution, which established the nation’s capital in Washington.
Photograph of Olympics by Mike Groll/AP Images; Photograph of Alex Ovechkin by Cal Sport Media/AP Images; Photograph of Spy Museum courtesy of Spy Museum; Photograph of Maketto by Queue; Photograph of Metro by Mira/Alamy; Photograph of Andrés by Blair Getz Mezibov; Pike & Rose courtesy of Pike & Rose
This article appears in the November 2013 issue of The Washingtonian.
