Sixers try to sway Philly’s Chinatown leaders to accept a new sports arena

Sixers chief executive Tad Brown, developer David Adelman, and other team leaders on Sunday stepped up efforts to promote to a larger audience in Chinatown the pro basketball team’s planned $1 billion-plus, privately funded arena proposed in the city’s East Market section.

They pitched the arena, first announced in July, to more than 200 members of cultural, business and immigrant societies‚ part of the Philadelphia Chinese Community Organization United umbrella group, in an hourlong presentation in the banquet room of Ocean City restaurant on North Ninth Street.

Facing community leaders who say they are open-minded about the project as long as they are convinced that the Sixers are addressing their concerns, the project officials invited public comment, though provided few detailed answers.

“It’s incredibly important that we have an opportunity to listen and learn, and that I understand how we can work with the community to secure what we believe is a very important opportunity for the city of Philadelphia,” Brown told the groups.

The 18,500-seat arena at 11th and Market would serve as the anchor for a new entertainment district studded with restaurants, bars, shops and, eventually, apartment towers. Its proponents pledged Sunday to hear and address the neighbors’ safety, affordability and traffic concerns, and said the arena would replace a declining shopping area and bus station by 2031.

The Sixers executives’ remarks were translated into Mandarin — and occasionally Cantonese, for older attendees from China’s southern region — by Holly Meng, the college programs officer and peripatetic founder and leader of a string of Chinese American organizations, who as the group’s outside secretary serves as spokesperson.

“Everyone’s concerned about Chinatown’s safety,” Tian Zhang, the laundry owner and property owner serving as the group’s secretary general this year, told the groups, who gathered over fried chicken, vegetable rolls, pork buns and other platters circling two dozen tables.

“With the news coming out about this, all the businesses and residents are really concerned — what’s the effect for traffic, safety, business and residents?” Zhang added. He said he appreciated the 76ers’ willingness to take questions, and urged the crowd to stay “calm and peaceful.”

The Sixers leaders said they are still working on a promised analysis of how the arena will affect the neighborhood, and the exact steps they would pursue to prevent the kind of neighborhood shock Adelman said had been too common in past major developments.

Along Ninth Street, a block east of the meeting, retail businesses displayed Chinese-language posters under the banner, written in English, “No Arena.” Meng said supporters of Asian Americans United, a foundation- and corporate-funded public-school advocacy group whose founders have opposed the arena, also attended the meeting.

Community leaders say PCCOU is one of several organizations — others include the Chinatown Business Association, Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp., and Chinese Benevolent Association — whose leaders are forming a “steering committee” to receive the Sixers’ proposed Community Benefits Agreement. They expect that will direct up to $50 million over a period of years to public safety, early-housing project financing, traffic and other initiatives to ease negative impacts of the arena.

City labor leaders and some business people have welcomed the project as a job creation engine; some have praised it as useful competition for the region’s current arenas, where event ticket prices have escalated.

The Sixers hope to conclude the benefit agreement before this spring, so City Council can vote on approving zoning for the project and relinquish a block of Filbert Street to the arena, according to people familiar with discussions among the groups.

Adelman and David Gould, the Sixers’ chief diversity and inclusion officer, acknowledged what Adelman called the “terrible” history of highway and public construction projects that had demolished parts of Chinatown in past decades, sometimes after promises he says developers did not fulfill.

But Adelman contrasted the project with the quiet purchase and demolition that reduced the former Chinatown in Washington, D.C., for an earlier sports stadium. He said the Sixers intend to be open about their moves, and are displacing not small businesses or apartments, but a once-bustling, now-declining Philadelphia shopping area and a bus terminal that had already lost its lease.

The Sixers briefly made the case for a new arena: The aging Wells Fargo Center is due for replacement by 2031, when they plan to finish the new arena; the site is admirably suited for public transit, with suburban and South Jersey train lines converging there, as well as city subway and bus service.

In a nod to concerns that arena parking will displace drivers who shop in Chinatown and inconvenience neighborhood car owners, Adelman said the team has made arrangements with dozens of neighborhood parking garages to validate fan parking, so they don’t compete for curb space — a major concern of Steven Zhu, who heads the Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association.

Adelman said games will start at 7:15 p.m., after commuters have left city offices.

Gould said the $1.9 billion project will generate lasting jobs after construction concludes in 2031. He promised steps to “preserve and promote affordability, create a clean and safe environment, minimize the impacts of construction and congestion,” and preserve Chinatown’s “cultural identity and sustainability.” He added that space will be set aside in the arena building “for Chinatown businesses” and added that the Sixers plan to promote other Chinatown businesses to fans.

And to those fearing crime and trash will proliferate, Adelman said he expects a busy new arena will attract new tenants to vacant properties on Market Street, and promised a “robust safety and cleanliness program.”

There were a handful of questions. “The stadium coming into Chinatown is going to increase the value of buildings in Chinatown. The landowners will pass the cost to the Chinatown community,” and it threatens “gentrification,” said Serena Chang, among a handful of younger attendees who asked questions in English.

While the Sixers aren’t proposing to knock down buildings in Chinatown, big projects can tend to price out current tenants, said Michael Zhang, who said he owns a small business and volunteers for community groups, and wants Chinatown preserved so his children can enjoy it.

“Our goal here is to share information. Not to ask for your blessing,” or demand immediate decisions, but to give you “real information” to decide on its impact, said developer Adelman, who is leading the project in partnership with the Sixers’ billionaire managing partners Josh Harris and David Blitzer. “We know we have a lot of work to do before we come to the community with a [full] proposal.”