1304 Alabama Ave, SE rendering via DCPL
From WMATA:
“Metro and the District of Columbia today announced a joint development project at Congress Heights station that will bring a new DC Public Library opens in a new tab and improved transit infrastructure to the community.
The project is commencing with the construction of transit improvements enabling the development of a new 23,000-square-foot public library adjacent to the station, creating a community destination that connects residents to educational resources, services, and opportunities while enhancing access to public transportation.
The District is investing $15 million in transit and infrastructure improvements to support broader housing and economic goals, improve multimodal connections to the 183-acre St. Elizabeths East development and the surrounding community, and create an opportunity to anchor Congress Heights station with a new public library.
As part of this project, the Congress Heights bus loop will be replaced and reconfigured, allowing for the extension of Sycamore St. and 13th Street down to Alabama Ave. SE. These changes were intended to improve access to St. Elizabeths East and the community, while also enhancing transit operations, including seven bus bays, two layover spaces, new bus shelters, lighting, sidewalks, a new traffic signal at the bus loop exit, and new curbside pick-up/drop-off spaces.
This bus loop reconfiguration also created a development opportunity to partner with DC Public Library to provide a full-service library in this community. Construction of the library will begin later this year after the new bus loop construction is underway.
“The new bus loop and the new library at Congress Heights station represent the kind of investment that strengthens community and creates lasting opportunities for residents,” said Metro General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Randy Clarke. “We look forward to partnering with the District to deliver on this vision for the redevelopment of the St. Elizabeths campus.”
This project builds on Metro’s growing partnership with DC Public Library to connect community amenities directly to transit. In addition to the future Congress Heights Library, Metro and DC Public Library are advancing plans for a new library at the Deanwood station as part of a broader mixed-use development.
Metro’s joint development program opens in a new tab has resulted in more than 60 developments across the region, generating over $230 million in annual tax revenue while adding housing, jobs, retail, and community spaces.”
And from the Mayor’s Office:
“Mayor Muriel Bowser today joined the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), DC Public Library, and community members to celebrate the Congress Heights Metro Station redevelopment, a project that will deliver a brand-new, 23,000-square-foot full-service library and a reconfigured bus loop. The project, which will improve access across the St. Elizabeths East campus, is the latest milestone in Mayor Bowser’s decade-long transformation of the historic 183-acre site into a thriving mixed-use community with housing, retail, world-class sports and entertainment, and major civic and healthcare investments.
“Over the past 12 years, we have worked together, across government and the community, to make the St. Elizabeths East campus into a promise made, promise kept,” said Mayor Bowser. “With WMATA, we are turning a Metro station and a bus loop into a front door for opportunity. We started here with a new arena that would bring world-class sports and entertainment to Ward 8, and then we delivered housing, retail, jobs, healthcare, and soon, a brand-new library.”
The joint development between DC Public Library and WMATA will bring a new 23,000-square-foot library to the Congress Heights Metro Station, replacing the Parklands-Turner Library and offering services not available in the current 5,000 square-foot location. The new Congress Heights Library will offer dedicated spaces for adults, teens, and children. It will also feature experiential spaces, including a co-working area, a makerspace lab, focus rooms, and dedicated recording and editing studios for podcasting, music recording, and editing. The design-build team is Perkins + Will Architects and Turner Construction.
“The new Congress Heights Library finally gives this community the space it has long deserved. For years, the Parklands-Turner Library has been one of our smallest and busiest locations, doing extraordinary work in a space several times smaller than what residents need. A great library tells the people who walk in that they matter, that their curiosity matters, and that their ideas matter. The new Congress Heights Library will do that,” said Richard Reyes-Gavilan, Executive Director of the DC Public Library.
The development project will also deliver a reconfigured bus loop—a critical segment of the campus roadway network that will improve transit connectivity and create a new civic destination that will help knit together the vibrant mixed-use community at St. Elizabeths East and make way for the new Congress Heights Library. Construction on the new bus loop will formally begin this summer and the new Congress Heights Library is scheduled to open in 2027.
“The new bus loop and the new library at Congress Heights station represent the kind of investment that strengthens community and creates lasting opportunities for residents,” said Metro General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Randy Clarke. “We look forward to partnering with the District to deliver on this vision for the redevelopment of the St. Elizabeths campus.”
The Congress Heights Metro Station redevelopment is part of the Bowser Administration’s long-term transformation of the St. Elizabeths East campus. Over the past decade, Mayor Bowser has led the redevelopment of the historic campus into a thriving mixed-use community, complete with hundreds of units of affordable and market-rate housing; retail shopping and a community gathering space at Sycamore & Oak; the CareFirst Arena—home of the Mystics and the Capital City Go-Go and practice facility for the Wizards; and major civic and healthcare investments, including the Whitman-Walker Max Robinson Center and Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health—the first new full-service hospital built in the District in 25 years.”