Two fragile DC neighborhoods hang in the balance as the Wizards and Capitals consider leaving town

WASHINGTON (AP) — Already struggling to keep his Chinatown bar afloat, Yousef Tellawi felt a sense of impending doom when he learned that the owner of Washington’s Capitals and Wizards wanted to move the teams out of the neighborhood and into northern Virginia.

The departure of the teams from their home at Capital One Arena, he said, “would completely pull the plug on Chinatown,” an area that’s already been hit hard by a post-pandemic decline in the number of downtown office workers and a sharp increase in violent crime in the district.

Across the Anacostia River, another fragile Washington neighborhood is dreading the ripple effects of that stadium deal — which still needs approval by the Virginia General Assembly and the city of Alexandria.

Congress Heights is one of Washington’s poorest neighborhoods and, like Chinatown, also has suffered under the current crime spike. And it, too, has pinned its economic hopes on a sports arena and the crowds it draws to games, concerts and other events.

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