Photo by NCinDC

A new shuttle service isn’t the only thing the National Mall received today. The Trust for the National Mall announced that its chairman, John “Chip” Akridge, is donating $1 million more to the nonprofit he founded in 2007.

With the seven-figure gift today, Akridge, who is also the founder and chairman of the commercial real estate development company that bears his family’s name, made the first of what the trust is calling Founding Investor donations. The trust’s president, Caroline Cunningham, told the Associated Press Akridge’s donation is the first to hit the million-dollar mark.

The fundraising group, which Akridge first started cobbling together in 2001, is shooting to raise a total of $350 million to finance much-needed repairs to to the 309-acre park. Many will remember that in an early draft of the 2009 stimulus act, House Democrats pushed to include $200 million for work on the Mall. That sum was stripped after House Republicans objected and later replaced with about $55 million for fixes on three memorial sites.