Sixers arena draws support at town hall meeting from unions, Black clergy; Chinatown advocates continue to voice opposition

Hundreds of people who favored and opposed plans for a $1.55 billion downtown Sixers arena packed the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Wednesday night, the majority of speakers condemning the project at a town hall called by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

Across almost three hours, Chinatown residents described their fears that the project would ruin their beloved community, while union officers insisted it was time for Philadelphia to step up and support a project that could boost jobs and the downtown economy.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker closed out her town hall on the 76ers proposed arena with a fiery speech in which she promised to reach a decision on whether she supports the project soon and to forcefully fight for the side she chooses.

“When it is time for me as mayor of this city to stand up and affirm where I am on this issue, you will know where I am,” Parker said.

An unspoken dynamic has permeated the town hall on the 76ers proposed arena: Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is widely expected to endorse the project at some point this fall, but the speakers on both sides Wednesday night acted outwardly as if the mayor was neutral.

That dynamic seeped through at times, with advocates for Chinatown complaining that Parker had ignored previous invitations for her to visit the neighborhood and supporters of the project praising her leadership.

Many people expect City Council to eventually approve the 76ers arena proposal.

Why? Primarily because Ryan Boyer, head of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, adamantly supports it.

The first speaker to endorse the 76ers arena project was Daisy Cruz, Mid-Atlantic district leader for the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ.

Cruz’s union represents building service employees in Center City office buildings such as custodians and security guards. She noted that “32BJ has fought almost every big landlord and corporation in Center City.”

Annie Lo, an attorney with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, was the first person called to the microphone Wednesday night — and immediately ceded her time, so that two Chinatown high school students could speak.

The room erupted, as people in red-and-white “No Arena” T-shirts clapped and cheered.

Margaret Chen, a Chinatown resident, former teacher and vice chair of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, said her organization opposes the arena project — but she emphasized that it's not anti-development.

“We welcome new developments, but the arena is not the solution that advances or protects Chinatown’s future nor does it contribute to a safer, cleaner or greener Philadelphia,” Chen said, echoing Parker’s campaign slogan. “Philadelphia's very own city planning commission has not carried out a planning process to determine what location is best … nor the best and the highest uses of Market East.”

James Wang, the president and CEO of Asian Bank, an independent community bank, described Chinatown as a vibrant, living community – with businesses, churches, temples and a funeral home.

“Chinatown is a place where people come to get a fresh start,” he said, and anything that would harm that would be a concern.

More than an hour after Mayor Cherelle Parker’s community meeting on the 76ers’ proposed Center City arena was scheduled to begin, nobody from the community had spoken.

Parker delayed the start of the event, which was slated to start at 6 p.m., for about 20 minutes to allow for the hundreds of people lined up outside to make their way in.

As she kicked off the townhall on the arena proposal, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker laid out her reasons for holding the meeting and her expectations for decorum during it.

"Before I make any decision on the arena proposal in Center City, I will do what I have done throughout my entire career that is standard operating procedure — and that is I will communicate and I will listen to any stakeholders,” Parker said.

Hundreds of people on Wednesday evening gathered in a room at the Pennsylvania Convention Center for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s town hall on the proposed 76ers arena.

The room filled up before the event began, and Parker told the crowd there are two video-enabled overflow rooms for the many people still trying to enter.

Outside the convention center, dozens of Chinatown supporters rallied and waved signs, insisting that the arena would hurt their community. Across the street, union members gathered and the Sixers’ song blared from a truck.

Harry Leong, president of the Philadelphia Suns youth group, told the crowd that Chinatown is about more than stores - it’s about people and relationships.

The steering committee of a Philadelphia organization of architects and building-design experts has called on city leaders “to take this problem out of the hands of private interests and develop a comprehensive master plan for Market Street that satisfies the needs of all of us.”

The committee of the Design Advocacy Group, which seeks quality and equity in planning, architecture and preservation, asked the mayor and City Council to foster the creation of a plan that would lift the struggling Market East business corridor, generate durable good-paying jobs, and enhance the route’s relationship with nearby Chinatown.

Before the town hall meeting commenced, the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, the union, reiterated its support for the project.

“It will help build a better future not only for our members but for working families across the city of Philadelphia,” said William Sproule, the union’s executive secretary-treasurer. “We applaud Mayor Parker for convening a Town Hall so that all voices can be heard, including representatives of the thousands of union members who live and work in this great city."

To mark Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s birthday, Chinatown advocates delivered a big, strawberry-topped cake to City Hall on Monday. The red piping said, “Mayor Parker: Happy Birthday! Save Chinatown!”

Security officers would not allow delivery to the second floor, but a staffer came downstairs to retrieve the cake and a bouquet of balloons, according to advocates who were there. They sang a chorus of, “Happy Birthday to You,” a lighter moment in a saga that’s produced little laughter.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker will host a meeting with community members about the proposed Sixers arena tonight, an event likely to draw a crowd of residents passionate — in one way or another — about the controversial project.

Parker is set to hold the two-hour town hall event at the Convention Center on Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. Fliers have been circulating in neighborhoods near the site of the proposed project at 10th and Market Streets.

As the debate over the construction of a potential Sixers arena in downtown Philadelphia takes center stage in City Hall, policymakers may now have to contend with a plot twist in the two-year-long saga: competition from across the river.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration told the Sixers in a letter last week that the state could award up to $800 million in tax credits — as well as borrow hundreds of millions of dollars — to support an arena in Camden and a broader “large-scale redevelopment project.”