OPENING DAY!

It felt a little like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, joining 150 Monument Realty guests yesterday for a leisurely day going to the first Nats game of the season—the weather was just too perfect. (Oops, sorry about the game itself.)

Monument co-founder Jeff Neal stands with a bus driver before taking off from downtown offices. Jeff loves baseball because he was once a catcher for the AAA Nashville Sounds. Okay, the preceding sentence is not accurate. Actually, Jeff was a spectator at the Nashville games growing up, but his seats were in the second row behind home plate, so it felt like he was playing. He and his 10 and 12 year olds have been to 7 out of 30 major league ballparks and plan to visit all the rest over the next four summers. Maybe Jeff can drive around in the bus like John Madden.

Now, I know you're asking, what is it with the Boston Red Sox cap in the front row? And the truth is, we don't know. We guess the excitement of opening day just got these fans carried away.

First stop was to see Half Street, which Monument plans as a 775,000 SF mixed use "urban gateway" to the stadium. At the moment, it's a bunch of dirt. But then so was the stadium—and look what's happening there in the distance. A little bird told us that a very prominent corporate user will be announced in four or five months, and that law firms have unexpectedly shown interest.

Sunglasses Brigade. Across from the Navy Yard Metro station (undergoing a tripling in size), Monument co-founder, Michael Darby gets sandwiched in between Cushman brokers John Kerr and Brian Raher. Must have been a sale on summer lenses somewhere.

We all got back in the bus to RFK, and the next stop was a tent outside theArmory where yummy ballpark franks and burgers awaited, preceded by a Monument welcoming crew of Bethany Allen, Lindsay Fry, and Molly Davis.

Summer at the Stadium. Feeling the 80 degree April breezes were GVA Advantis' Adrian Checa, standing, and, seated from left, Adaoha Properties' Cheryl Hamilton, DC Economic Partnership's Keith Sellars, and Riverfront BID director Michael Stevens.

Why are there no pictures from inside the ballpark? Because some of us had to go back to the office to work!