Critics of a downtown Sixers arena will march and rally in Center City on Saturday. Here’s what to know.

Critics of a proposed downtown Sixers arena on Chinatown’s doorstep will gather Saturday afternoon to protest with a rally and march through Center City.

Here’s what you should know.

Organized by Asian Americans United and the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, the event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., starting at City Hall before proceeding east on Market Street. Participants will then head north on 11th Street to Race Street, then back south on 10th Street. The march is expected to end at the Chinatown gate near Arch Street, organizers said.

“We’ll rally with voices from diverse Philly neighborhoods then march into Chinatown with the power of the people,” Asian Americans United wrote in a social media post announcing the march.

The march will come just days after Philly lawmakers returned to City Council on Thursday for the first meeting of the fall session. Council is expected to consider as many as a dozen pieces of legislation related to the project, The Inquirer has reported. The arena’s construction requires legislation to be passed before demolition and construction could begin.

The 2024 Disability Pride Parade and Festival is also scheduled to take place within the time frame of the Chinatown protest. The city announced Thursday that several roads will be closed as part of the parade from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., including:

Other road closures will begin at 11 a.m. and last until the end of the parade:

The parade itself starts at 11 a.m. on City Hall’s north apron and will include a festival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway from 16th to 18th Streets. That event is scheduled to run through 4 p.m. Saturday, according to Disability Pride Pennsylvania.

The Sixers have worked for two years on plans to build the proposed $1.55 billion arena and housing tower at 10th and Market Streets. The team has said that the project would revive Market Street East, bringing jobs and tax revenue to the area with an arena that would host an estimated 150 events a year starting in 2031, when it is projected to open if approved.

The Sixers contend that the arena’s construction would not harm Chinatown and that its developers were sensitive to the neighborhood’s needs. Instead, the team has said, the arena may help the neighborhood by drawing thousands of fans to the area, benefiting its restaurants and stores.

Critics, however, have argued that the arena would accelerate gentrification in one of the city’s most valuable immigrant neighborhoods. Last month, a city-sponsored community impact analysis lent credence to those concerns, finding that roughly half of small businesses in Chinatown would lose economically if the arena is built.

The study also sought to identify what it called “tipping points” in critical areas like parking and traffic, in which small alterations can create more dramatic changes down the line. It compared the situation to a game of Jenga, where eventually “removing a specific block causes the rest of the tower to collapse.”

The study is “saying things we knew,” Asian Americans United executive director Vivian Chang told The Inquirer. “We’ve been gaslighted for two years, and this was saying, ‘Oh, it is true, there will be harm.’”

A recent poll from the Save Chinatown Coalition found that more than half of respondents — 56% — were against the project.

» READ MORE: The Sixers arena took center stage as City Council returned to session. A vote could come this fall.

Recently, executives at Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center, presented a plan that seeks to supplant the arena plan with a biomedical research facility. Other ideas for the area have also been suggested, including a library, high school, public pool, and “Welcoming District” for newly arriving immigrants. The Sixers, The Inquirer reported, have dismissed those proposals, citing a lack of financial backing and written business plans.

Earlier this week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration told the Sixers in a letter that the Garden State could give the team up to $800 million in tax credits to support an arena and adjacent development in Camden.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker later said that keeping the team in the city “is a priority” for her, but she has not taken a firm position on the proposed Center City arena’s construction.

Critics have demonstrated against the arena in the past, most recently in a gathering Thursday outside City Hall amid City Council’s return. And in June 2023, marchers demonstrated against the arena in Center City. One participant at that demonstration, longtime Chinatown advocate Mary Yee, called the arena plan an “existential threat” to the neighborhood.

“We’ve been threatened so many times before,” she said.