Sixers arena would make Jefferson Station ‘darker, smaller, and more difficult to access’

Through all the Fashion District’s ups and downs, the underground concourse around SEPTA’S Jefferson Station has always thrummed with activity. The corridors that converge below the ’80s-era shopping mall form a natural town square where transit riders can grab a meal at the food court, pick up a custom cake from the renowned Tiffany’s Bakery, or browse nearby stores like Skechers and H&M.

From there, it’s a short walk along the mall’s wide, brightly lit corridors to the Market-Frankford Line, the underground trolleys, PATCO, the Reading Terminal Market, and City Hall. If you were so inclined, you could continue along the concourse all the way to the Comcast towers at 18th Street.

But if City Council gives final approval to the 76ers plans for a Market Street arena later this month, the swirl of underground activity between 10th and 11th Streets will be snuffed out. According to an analysis prepared for SEPTA by Econsult Solutions, a Philadelphia firm that provides economic analyses of large development projects, the team owners will eliminate all the restaurants and stores that now serve the station to make room for the infrastructure and back-of-house functions needed to operate the arena.

Because so much of the arena debate has focused on what will happen to Chinatown and Market Street, there has been scant discussion about the project’s impact on this important public space — a key part of the “Cosmopolitan Canopy” described by Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson in his famous book of the same name.

But it seems clear from the Econsult report that the concourse would be profoundly compromised, not just during construction, but once the arena is opened.

The concourse has been an integral part of Philadelphia since 1924, when the first sections were laid out alongside the Market-Frankford El. The underground walkway was enlarged and extended when the Gallery (now the Fashion District) was created in the ’70s, and then again when Comcast erected its newest tower at 18th and Arch. At one point, every major department store, office tower, and hotel in Center City had a direct connection to the concourse.

But to build the arena, Econsult says the Sixers would have to cordon off the section of the concourse directly below their new venue, between 10th and 11th Streets. They would do this by erecting walls and columns along the property line and rerouting portions of the concourse around their footprint. The team also plans to lower the ceiling in the three-story Regional Rail station by at least a floor, eliminating a row of large windows that brings natural light tumbling down to the platforms.

As a result of these changes, Econsult says that the concourse’s broad corridors would be reduced to a warren of narrow, twisting passageways. The airy station would become a dreary underground depot. It would feel like a basement, much as New York’s claustrophobic Penn Station does.

There have been numerous official reports since the arena was proposed in 2022, but Econsult’s is the most forthright: “Based upon the current plans provided to SEPTA, the proposed demolition of the Fashion District and reconfiguration of Jefferson Station will result in a station that is darker, smaller, and more difficult to access and navigate than the current station.”

Although SEPTA commissioned the Econsult analysis, the agency declined to comment on the firm’s conclusions.

But based on Econsult’s findings, it seems likely that the aesthetic changes to the station and concourse could have real-world consequences. If conditions at Jefferson Station are seriously degraded, Econsult predicts that fewer people will opt for the train — not just for arena events, but for daily travel.

Let that sink in for a moment. In making their case for a downtown arena, the Sixers have claimed that it would be a boon to the region’s transit network.

Their argument goes like this: Suburbanites are more likely to take the train to a downtown arena because they won’t have to change to the Broad Street subway, as they do when they attend games at the sports complex. Once those reluctant transit riders get used to the train, the Sixers say, they will become regulars, which would be good for SEPTA, good for the city, and good for the environment. Based on their own studies, the Sixers estimate that they can persuade 40% of the fans at each event — 7,200 people — to leave their cars at home.

The Econsult report not only casts doubt on the Sixers’ ridership predictions, it questions whether the arena will actually create more visibility for Jefferson Station.

When the Sixers first proposed the project, there was talk of a grand transit entrance on Market Street, similar to the one at TD Garden in Boston. But the current Sixer plans show there would actually be less visibility for SEPTA because the Sixers would close five of the 15 mall entrances, Econsult says. At least two of SEPTA’s Market Street canopies would be removed — ironically, to give the arena more visibility.

The real concern is what happens at concourse level. Although the underground walkway provides a convenient shortcut across the city — especially in bad weather — it can be an intimidating place when no one is around. Once the Sixers remove the food court, there will no longer be a critical mass of people gathered outside of Jefferson Station.

Some passageways might have to be closed to deter crime. That’s one of the reasons why you can no longer access underground corridor that once connected Gray 30th Street Station to the adjacent Market-Frankford stop.

“Once the arena is built it will be essentially impossible, and extremely costly, to modify Jefferson Station,” the Econsult report concludes.

If Econsult is right and these changes do deter people from using Jefferson Station, that would make SEPTA’s already precarious financial situation even worse. Right now, SEPTA can afford to run its Regional Rail trains only once an hour in the evenings. Many were hoping that the arena would provide SEPTA with an incentive to increase its nighttime service.

But during the recent City Council hearings on the project, SEPTA’s interim general manager, Scott Sauer, testified that the perennially underfunded agency won’t be able to afford to run extra, postgame trains after the arena opens in 2031 unless the state greatly increases its operating subsidy. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier went even further, predicting that SEPTA will be forced to make “drastic” service cuts because of the extra costs imposed by the arena.

The obvious solution would be to have the Sixers chip in for the extra service, which Econsult says could cost over $20 million a year. So far, the team has refused.

That seems shortsighted given that Jefferson Station’s convenient transit is supposedly the rationale for locating the arena at 11th and Market.

Unless Regional Rail trains run at least twice an hour, most suburban fans will likely choose to drive to events, as they’ve always done. The car traffic coming off I-676 would almost certainly overwhelm the Chinatown neighborhood. Several city studies have noted that the Sixers need to meet their goal of 40% transit ridership to avoid gridlock on 10th Street, Chinatown’s main street, as well as the main access route for Jefferson Hospital’s emergency room.

SEPTA is equally concerned about what will happen to train service at Jefferson Station once the Sixers begin demolishing the mall. As the Econsult report observes, Jefferson Station (originally called Market East) and the Fashion District are a single structure that “function symbiotically.” Nearly 9,000 riders move through the concourse each day on their way to the platforms.

Given that the trains are powered by high-voltage electricity, it’s hard to believe that Jefferson Station could remain open while the arena is under construction. The longer the station is closed, the more riders SEPTA could lose.

Of course, most people who ride are suburbanites. They can afford to own a cars. Once they get out of the habit of taking SEPTA, they may never get back on the train.