Chinatown groups unite to protect the neighborhood as Sixers plan a new arena

Leaders of four broad-based groups in Philadelphia’s Chinatown have formed a committee “to ensure Chinatown’s stability and strengthen its future” in light of the Sixers’ plan to build a $1.3 billion arena at the nearby Philadelphia Fashion District at 10th and Market Streets.

In a statement published Thursday morning in the Chinese-language Metro Chinese Weekly, which is owned by committee cochair Dan Tsao, the group noted threats pressuring Chinatown — unaffordable housing, crime, a lack of public spaces, and the post-pandemic squeeze on the community’s hundreds of small businesses — and added that “the proposed 76ers arena will exacerbate these issues and lead to the demise of Chinatown,” if it were built “without intervention and involvement” by a broad population of Chinatown people.

To start that intervention and involvement, the groups have been meeting with Sixers arena developer David Adelman and his team and are now setting up the committee to “ensure that Chinatown remains a vibrant resident and business district, a hub of cultural celebration,” and a sanctuary for low-income immigrants who speak little English, the statement says.

The group said it would focus first on updating a 2017 study by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. to review Chinatown’s economic and social conditions, population trends, and other challenges, and “develop strategies to strengthen its social, cultural, and economic network.”

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The statement steered clear of endorsing or fighting the arena, instead promising that the study’s results “will inform our response to all proposed development projects affecting Chinatown,” depending on how likely they are to improve or threaten conditions there.

The group’s four leaders are:

”The committee will hire third-party experts to carry out a study,” Tsao said in an interview Thursday, using previous work by PCDC as a reference. “Urban-planning and commercial-corridor consultants will be engaged.”

Besides the four chairs, other committee members include restaurant owners Shawn Cheung (Golden Chopsticks), Michael Chow (Sang Kee) and Sam Leung (Tai Lake); religious congregation leaders the Rev. Thomas Betz, who heads the group that runs Holy Redeemer Catholic Church and School, and the Rev. Wayne Lee, of the Chinese Christian Church & Center; Holly Meng, a college-programs administrator and PCCOU official; Adam Xu, head of a beverage merchants’ group and a financial services group, and developer of Chinatown Square; and Chinatown residents Margaret Chin and Kevin Ma.

Not every Chinese American group in the city is part of the committee. For example, Steve Zhu, head of the Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association, whose members include takeout restaurants in outlying neighborhoods, and who is especially concerned the arena may drive up parking rates, participated in early discussion meetings but is not on the committee.

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And group leaders said they reached out to Asian Americans United, a public-school advocacy group whose leaders and supporters have spoken against the arena but received no commitment to join.

That group’s cofounder, Debbie Wei, told The Inquirer that she wanted the Sixers to fund a study reviewing the likely impact of the arena by consultants of her group’s choosing and that the Sixers should agree not to build the project on their proposed Market Street site if the study found that it would hurt Chinatown.

Adelman, who is also a limited partner in the Sixers ownership, has offered to negotiate a community-benefits agreement involving specific security, business-opportunity and construction-finance aid, among other possible commitments.

The development team wants the arena to open in 2031, as the Sixers’ contract at Comcast’s Wells Fargo Center expires. City approvals will be needed for construction and to close off a block of Filbert Street, which would become part of the arena.