Sixers’ arena proposal faces hours of scrutiny in its first official city review

A draft plan for the $1.55 billion arena proposed by the Philadelphia 76ers in Center City generated hours of questioning during its first official review from a city-appointed panel of architecture and planning experts Monday.

The special meeting of the advisory-only Civic Design Review (CDR) committee was held at the request of Councilmember Mark Squilla, whose district includes the site on the edge of Chinatown where the arena is planned between 10th and 11th and Market and Filbert Streets.

At least 30 members of the public weighed in as well during the daylong virtual meeting and were uniformly critical of the proposed 18,500-seat stadium.

CDR committee members voted at the end of the day to invite the development team back — the only power the advisory board has — to give them a chance to make changes in response to the critiques they heard in the meeting.

“It’s a serious proposal … and there’s a lot of great aspects of what would make a successful downtown arena included,” said Dan Garofalo, vice chair of the CDR committee, which is composed of architects and planners. But “we’ve never had an experience just like this one. There hasn’t been anyone speaking in favor of this project in, what, six hours?”

The arena development team, 76 DevCo, and architecture firm Gensler walked CDR members and the public through the site plan. The building would be constructed over Filbert Street between 10th and 11th Streets and into the area now occupied by the former Greyhound Bus Station. The project includes sidewalk expansions on 10th and 11th Streets, retail areas inside the arena, and a 395-unit apartment building at the northern end of the site.

Demolition of the site would likely start in 2026, with construction beginning in 2028 for a 2031 opening, said Alex Kafenbaum, head of development for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the team.

The development team responded to repeated critiques of the proposed stadium’s location, as multiple members of the public asked why the 76ers’ plans couldn’t be shifted to the area around 30th Street, another location on East Market, or simply left in South Philadelphia.

76 DevCo representatives argued that the site they chose would be more urban in form and more easily accessible than the Wells Fargo Center on South Broad Street.

“First and foremost is the proximity to transit, and the ability to connect every major regional transit line within the area,” Kafenbaum said. “The second is the ability to activate a section of Market East that has really struggled for a long time.”

Monday’s presentation on the “master plan” for the project focused on parking, loading zones, pedestrian access, and the layout of buildings on the site as opposed to the proposed structures themselves.

The CDR process is meant to give developers an opportunity to hear outside perspectives by experts, and the public, on their projects and the option of making improvements to their plans in response.

During the meeting, Jack Conviser with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission noted that under the team’s plans, 10th and 11th Streets would have to be shut down for periods before and after events for crowd control. The developers have said they expect to hold about 150 events a year, including about 40 Sixers home games.

Critics of the proposal noted that closures would disrupt high-ridership SEPTA bus routes such as the 23 and 45 on 11th Street, and that generally the plan presented to the committee did not have enough details about how to handle the surge of traffic around the arena, especially when games or concerts were letting out.

“This plan doesn’t … show me that we can fit that queue [here],” said Ashley DiCaro, a member of the committee. “I want to be honest as to … what are the disruptions to the bus routes that go along here? What does it mean to shut down these streets and to have these thousands of people here at a given time?”

Some public commenters questioned whether the arena would activate the stretch of East Market Street during nonevent days, especially considering that the number of retail spaces proposed would be fewer than what is currently available in the western wing of the Fashion District mall. The current plan envisions five retail locations, plus a team store, and public access through the arena via a promenade.

“I don’t know that that’s enough retail space to effectively engage pedestrians when the building is dark,” said John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp.

Chin also said that the recent news that the Capitol One arena in downtown Washington, D.C., located among the remnants of that city’s Chinatown, may lose its sports teams to a new arena in Northern Virginia also troubled him. What would become of the 76ers arena after its useful life is over?

“We’ve seen other examples in other cities, whether it be L.A. or New York, where previous arenas have now been repurposed into smaller venues that house different types of events that may not be currently in the larger 20,000-seat attendees,” said Sherveen Baftechi, head of design and construction for the 76ers.

Some attendees also questioned why a Civic Design Review process was being held at all, given that traffic, community, and other impact studies that were promised by year’s end are not yet publicly available.

A master plan bill would have to be passed by City Council, but Squilla requested that the Civic Design Review committee consider the project before a bill was introduced to maximize public input. That led several attendees to protest that the meeting was illegitimate.

In advance of the meeting, Neeta Patel, the interim executive director of Asian Americans United, an advocacy group that opposes the arena, told CDR officials that the review “violates the zoning code” and must “be halted immediately.”

“As impacted community members, we deserve a lawful process,” Patel wrote in a letter to the CDR committee. “Absolutely no one is asking for this fast-track maneuver other than the developer and one Council member.”

After multiple attendees echoed Patel’s criticism, CDR chair Michael Johns noted that the Law Department had advised him that the meeting was lawful and not in violation of the Sunshine Act.

If the proposal moves forward, this won’t be 76 DevCo’s only trip to the CDR committee. The design of the arena and apartment buildings would also be subject to a review.

Due to City Council’s tradition of councilmanic prerogative, in which district Council members are given a wide latitude over land-use bills in their territory, Squilla wields an unusual amount of influence over the introduction of a master plan or other enabling legislation.

Squilla will be under intense pressure to act. The city’s influential development industry and building trades unions are supporters of the project. Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker is seen as supportive of the project.

“There’s still more information to receive before we could [proceed] as far as studies and other data is concerned, but I think it’s a good start,” Squilla said at the end of the meeting. The forthcoming studies “may also help to offer additional comments or concerns and seeing if those impacts can be mitigated as this process plays forward.”

Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.

This article has been updated to reflect that the 76ers development team, not the Planning Commission, is suggesting that street closures would be required before and after events at the new arena.