City Councilmember Mark Squilla introduces bills to authorize the 76ers’ Center City arena plan as Chinatown protesters disrupt proceedings

Game on.

City Councilmember Mark Squilla on Thursday introduced 13 pieces of legislation that, if approved, would allow the 76ers to build a new arena in Center City, a controversial proposal that the team is hoping lawmakers will approve by the end of the year.

As the clerk read out the titles of the bills, scores of anti-arena demonstrators who had packed Council chambers disrupted proceedings by chanting, “No arena,” and by hanging a banner from the gallery reading, “Say no to billionaires. Say yes to Philly.” Council President Kenyatta Johnson eventually had the protesters cleared from the chambers. Many were advocates for Chinatown who say the project will displace and disrupt businesses and residents in the historic neighborhood, which borders the proposed arena site.

“This is why I love America,” Johnson said before proceedings resumed.

The introduction of the legislation initiates a legislative process that will likely involve several days of high-profile committee hearings and tense public debates pitting progressives and advocates for Chinatown against powerful interests that support the project like the building trades unions. Council’s final session of the year is Dec. 12.

“If [Council members] are comfortable in terms of how we move forward, then it will be done by the end of the year,” Johnson said.

A 76ers spokesperson called the introduction of the legislation a ”critical milestone.”

“There is still a lot of work to do, but we are one step closer to building a world-class arena for the 2031-32 season,” the spokesperson said. “We look forward to working with the city as we move to the next steps in this process.”

Squilla, whose district includes the proposed site between Market and Filbert Streets and 10th and 11th Streets, tweaked some of the nine bills and two resolutions proposed a month ago by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker after she endorsed the project following months of negotiations with the team. Squilla, for instance, removed authorization for the team’s plans to build a residential tower atop the arena, a move he has said came in response to feedback from Chinatown residents.

He also added two measures of his own. One would create a zoning overlay in Chinatown that is “intended to include affordable housing, protect small businesses, and implement use controls,” Squilla said in a statement.

» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker has unveiled the terms of the city’s deal with the Sixers to build a new arena

The other would create an Arena Special Services District around the facility to provide public safety, street cleaning, and other services. Squilla based his plan for the quasi-governmental authority on a similar entity that serves the South Philadelphia stadium complex.

To pay for the $14.15 million district, Squilla altered a $50 million community benefits agreement that Parker had negotiated with the 76ers. Squilla’s version of the deal cuts $6 million that would have gone to Council for discretionary spending, $1.14 million for new streetlights, $2.5 million for recreation center improvements, $1.5 million to install CCTV cameras, and $3 million for a Chinatown small-business lending fund.

Instead, the 76ers will fund the new arena district to the tune of $707,500 per year for 20 years, starting in 2026. Its boundaries would stretch from Eighth Street to Broad Street and from Pine Street to Callowhill Street or possibly farther north, Squilla said. Streetlights and cameras would be installed by the team during construction, his office said.

In response to concerns that the arena could cause gridlock and block emergency vehicles, Squilla has added a transit oversight planning component, in which a committee of local stakeholders including community members, SEPTA, the Police Department, the Fire Department, and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital would establish protocols to ensure traffic mobility during the construction of the arena and on game nights. The committee will produce reports every six months, he said, to evaluate whether the plan is succeeding.

Additionally, Squilla said that in the future, he intends to propose a “cultural TIF,” a tax increment financing district that will “capture increases in tax revenues to reinvest in the Chinatown community.”

Those changes are unlikely to win over supporters of Chinatown who have been adamantly opposed to the arena since shortly after it was unveiled more than two years ago. More recently, the Washington Square West Civic Association came out against the project as well, meaning that no major neighborhood group that borders the project supports it.

Debbie Wei, a Chinatown activist who was among those removed from Council on Thursday, said officials were ignoring a community impact study commissioned by the city in order to benefit the 76ers’ billionaire owners, David Blitzer, Josh Harris, and David Adelman, the lead developer on the arena project.

“One of the impact studies says that Chinatown will be diminished or destroyed,” Wei said. “I want to hear City Council discuss that. And they’re just moving straight to legislation. It’s a disgrace. … This kind of fast-tracking to benefit billionaires on the backs of the people of the city of Philadelphia is unconscionable.”

Former Philadelphia Health Commissioner Walter Tsou, an opponent of the arena, said Squilla’s “job is in jeopardy because he is not listening to the constituents who elected him.” He expressed concern that traffic around the arena could snarl access to Jefferson, which sits just south of the proposed site.

”We need to fight like hell because we have never seen a fight like we’re taking now against three real estate billionaires,” Tsou said.

Parker applauded the introduction of the bills and said Chinatown will be protected.

“This is a pro-growth strategy that will be beyond the basketball as it relates to the positive externalities and impact on the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said Thursday. “We can continue to have the best Chinatown in the nation while ensuring that we work as hard as we can to enjoy this $1.3 billion private investment.”

Squilla has long said he would not move forward with the legislation needed to approve the arena if communities impacted by the project did not have adequate protections. He said Thursday morning that while additional protections may still need to be added, he had “come to a place where we feel comfortable enough that some of those are being addressed.”

“Now we can start the legislative process and the public hearing process to further enhance the ability to see if the arena can move forward,” he said, “and if it does, put further protections in place to help offset any impacts on the surrounding communities.”

A staunch ally of many of the unions that back the arena proposal, Squilla has long been expected to come out in favor of the project but has stopped short of explicitly endorsing it. On Thursday, he made clear he believes it should move forward.

“I wouldn’t introduce it if I didn’t think I could vote for it,” he said.

More than 200 Chinatown demonstrators regrouped outside City Hall after the bills were introduced, chanting, “Hey, hey, ho ho, these billionaires have got to go,” while arena supporters with signs reading “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” looked on from a few yards away.

Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United and a member of the Save Chinatown Coalition, urged the protesters to continue to pack Council’s chambers when the legislation is heard in committee, likely in late November and early December. She framed Thursday’s introductions as “the first quarter” of a long game.

”This is only the beginning,” she said. “And we know the Sixers don’t always win.”