Congress Heights is one of DC’s most consequential neighborhoods right now — and one of its least covered. Located in Southeast DC in Ward 8, it’s where the Washington Mystics play, where the Wizards practice, where the St. Elizabeths East campus is being transformed into one of the largest mixed-use developments east of the Anacostia River, and where the city has made its most significant investment in a historically underserved community in a generation. Congress Heights doesn’t perform for the rest of the city. It’s been building something real.
Where Congress Heights Is
Congress Heights sits in Southeast Washington DC, just south of Anacostia and east of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. The Congress Heights Metro station on the Green Line connects the neighborhood directly to downtown DC — about 20 minutes to Gallery Place, making it one of the more transit-connected neighborhoods east of the Anacostia despite its far southeast location.
The neighborhood is centered on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE and Alabama Avenue SE — the main commercial corridors that serve the community. St. Elizabeths East campus, where CareFirst Arena sits, is immediately adjacent to the Metro station.
CareFirst Arena and the Mystics
CareFirst Arena at 1100 Oak Drive SE — formerly the Entertainment and Sports Arena, renamed in 2025 — is the anchor of Congress Heights’ transformation. The 4,200-seat arena opened in September 2018 on the former St. Elizabeths Hospital grounds, built for $69 million with significant DC government investment.
The arena is the permanent home of the Washington Mystics — the WNBA team that won the 2019 championship and draws some of the league’s most passionate fans. It also serves as the Washington Wizards practice facility, bringing NBA-level training infrastructure to Southeast DC. Concerts, community events, boxing, and esports round out the programming calendar.
The arena was designed specifically to bring 380,000 annual visitors to Congress Heights — people who would otherwise never come to Ward 8. Whether that vision has fully materialized is a more complicated question, but the facility itself is genuine and the Mystics fanbase it has built in the neighborhood is real.
St. Elizabeths East: The Broader Development
The St. Elizabeths East campus — the former psychiatric hospital grounds where CareFirst Arena sits — is undergoing one of DC’s largest mixed-use redevelopments. The historic brick buildings of the former hospital are being converted to affordable housing, retail space, office space, and community uses. Plans project thousands of new housing units, significant new retail, and major job creation specifically targeting Ward 7 and 8 residents.
Nearly half of the arena construction hires lived in Wards 7 or 8. Over 65% of contracts went to DC-certified small businesses. The development model — designed explicitly to keep community members employed and benefiting from the investment — is worth noting as a contrast to developments elsewhere in the city where gentrification has displaced the communities development was supposed to serve.
The History of Congress Heights
Congress Heights is one of DC’s oldest Black communities — a neighborhood that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and has maintained a continuous African American residential character through decades of disinvestment, urban renewal, and now the current development moment.
St. Elizabeths Hospital, which operated on the neighborhood’s eastern edge from 1855 until the 1980s, shaped the neighborhood’s character for over a century — employing community members, defining the physical landscape, and eventually becoming a symbol of the federal government’s long neglect of its own property in one of DC’s most underserved communities.
The transformation of that campus into CareFirst Arena and the surrounding mixed-use development is the most visible sign that something has changed — that Ward 8, long overlooked by city investment, is receiving attention that longtime residents have been demanding for decades.
Community Character
Congress Heights is primarily residential — single-family homes, small apartment buildings, and quiet streets that feel genuinely domestic in a way that most of DC doesn’t. Multigenerational families who have been here for decades live alongside newer residents drawn by housing prices that remain significantly lower than comparable properties on the northwest side of the city.
Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE is the main commercial corridor — practical rather than polished, serving daily neighborhood needs rather than destination dining. The neighborhood has fewer commercial amenities than established northwest DC communities, a gap that the St. Elizabeths East development is designed to address over time.
Getting Around Congress Heights
Metro: Congress Heights station (Green Line) — direct to downtown DC. From Congress Heights to Gallery Place is about 20 minutes. Anacostia station (also Green Line) is nearby for additional access.
Bus: Multiple Metrobus routes serve MLK Avenue SE and Alabama Avenue SE. Reliable coverage for local trips within the neighborhood and to neighboring communities.
By car: Congress Heights is accessible via the Anacostia Freeway (I-295) and South Capitol Street. About 15-20 minutes to downtown without traffic.
🏨 Staying Near Congress Heights?
Congress Heights has limited hotel options — nearby Capitol Hill and Navy Yard have the closest stays with Green Line Metro access to the neighborhood and CareFirst Arena.
Quick Reference: Congress Heights DC
- Location: Southeast DC, Ward 8, south of Anacostia
- Metro: Congress Heights (Green Line) — 20 min to downtown
- Main corridors: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, Alabama Avenue SE
- Arena: CareFirst Arena — 4,200 seats, home of Washington Mystics WNBA
- Development: St. Elizabeths East campus — mixed-use redevelopment, housing + retail + jobs
- Mystics: 2019 WNBA champions, home games at CareFirst Arena
- Wizards: Practice facility at CareFirst Arena campus
- History: Historic Black community, former St. Elizabeths Hospital site
- Housing: Significantly lower prices than comparable northwest DC properties
- Best for: Families, homebuyers, community-rooted living, Mystics fans
📘 Getting Around Southeast DC
The Green Line connects Congress Heights to downtown but parking near CareFirst Arena on event nights requires a plan. The DC Parking & Towing Survival Guide covers Southeast DC’s parking zones and rules.