The future of a new Sixers arena shifts to City Hall after a year of contention

When the Sixers announced their plans to build a world-class basketball arena in the heart of Center City, they hoped all of Philadelphia would be excited and energized about the project.

A year later, though, some of the team’s actions have raised doubt and suspicion around the $1.3 billion proposal. Those have included:

“They’re in the process of blowing it,” said Jay McCalla, a former deputy managing director under Mayors John Street and Ed Rendell.

The good news for the Sixers, he said, is there’s time to recover. And others note that the team possesses several important advantages.

The politically strong building-trade unions want the arena, as does Kenney. The mayoral candidate who was most openly opposed, Helen Gym, finished third in the May Democratic primary, while the winner and presumptive next mayor, Cherelle Parker, has spoken positively about the project. Few on Council seem to have written off the arena, creating room for the team to shape opinions.

But if the Sixers want to turn their dreams of a downtown arena into reality, they will need to quickly develop their skills at a game far more complex than basketball: Philadelphia politics.

The future of the project lies in City Hall, where dimensions of power and persuasion will hold sway as key deadlines approach.

Council reconvenes in September, the same month that Chinatown, adamantly against having an arena on its doorstep, hosts the Mid-Autumn Festival, an important cultural event where leaders will continue to oppose the project.

A vital factor is whether the outgoing Council will take up legislation to approve the arena or put off action in light of the political reordering that will take place in January, when a new Council, Council president and mayor will be seated.

The Sixers, having already extended their timeline from June, say they need city approvals this fall, but they have not explained why. Fall is also when the Kenney administration expects to receive the project analyses.

A worrisome sign for the team’s planning: Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents the 1st District where the arena would be located, is skeptical that legislation could be passed this year.

“This is a big, big project, and you can’t rush stuff like this,” Squilla said.

The arena legislation may be a package of bills, he said, with separate measures for zoning, encroachments, financing, and permitting. It’s being written by the Sixers development team and the city Law Department, he said.

Another challenge for the Sixers is that the 17-seat Council currently has two vacancies, but bills still require nine votes to pass. That means in the fall, opponents would need only seven votes to kill the legislation.

Bills that don’t pass this year must be reintroduced in 2024, when the new, full-sized Council will be seated.

The Sixers did not make executives available for interviews on the past and future of the project despite several requests made across recent weeks.

On Monday, spokesperson Nicole Gainer issued a statement that said the team was “extremely satisfied with our progress made to date” and in coming months would share major endorsements and more details about how the arena will benefit the city.

The Sixers announced their intention to leave the Wells Fargo Center nearly a decade before their lease expires, the statement said, because they are committed to a planning process that ensures that the development benefits the franchise, the fans and Philadelphia.

“We believe taking our time to do this right is the best gift we can give to the city we love,” the statement said.

The team has trumpeted endorsements from building-trade union leaders and from some Black pastors for a project it describes as a big, tax-generating win for Philadelphia. And the team says it will soon announce information on community meetings and opportunities for public engagement.

“My sense is they’re not really selling it to the public. I don’t think that’s their intention,” said Phil Goldsmith, a former city deputy mayor, managing director and interim school-district CEO. “They’re selling it to the insiders, the movers and shakers, people in City Council, the unions. They have to get votes on City Council.”

In terms of public benefit, Goldsmith said, he doesn’t see anything to recommend the arena. But, “Politically, I see the avenues for it happening.”

“All these big public projects, they say, ‘Jobs!’ The mayor will listen to that.”

In heavily Democratic Philadelphia, former Councilmember Parker is all but guaranteed to succeed Kenney. She cruised to primary victory with backing from the building trades that want the 9,000 construction jobs the Sixers have promised.

Parker has talked positively about the project but stopped short of full endorsement. Many constituents have a less favorable view: 51% of Democratic voters oppose the arena, compared with 30% in favor and 19% unsure, according to a May poll by Emerson College Polling/PHL17.

During the mayoral campaign, the Philadelphia Board of Ethics accused candidate Jeff Brown of illegally coordinating with a political action committee that backed his campaign. The group’s anonymous donors included a “professional sports team” that gave $250,000 to boost his candidacy, according to the board.

The Sixers still have not said whether they were that team, despite the revelation that the political group’s chairperson is a lawyer who has consulted on the arena.

The stakes around the project are huge — for a post-pandemic Philadelphia that’s struggling to fill offices and transit lines, for a Chinatown that equates the arena with its destruction, for a Sixers ownership that stands to grow wealthier if it can add an arena to its portfolio.

Sixers part-owner and lead developer David Adelman said no alternate sites are being considered.

“I have no Plan B,” he told the Crossing Broad website in June. “I don’t operate that way.”

The Sixers intend to build on the footprint from 10th to 11th and Market to Filbert Streets, claiming one-third of the Fashion District mall and the now empty Greyhound bus station. The northern end of the arena would touch Chinatown at Cuthbert Street.

The team says the project would create jobs and drive spending on a part of Market East that’s blemished by closed and boarded stores. Building the arena atop the transit hub of Jefferson Station would benefit the region by encouraging fans to take public transportation to the games, the team says.

The Sixers promise that the arena will be privately financed and say that while they’re open to state and federal funding, no city dollars will be sought.

Last week the Sixers announced they were prepared to take steps they said would give the city greater control over the project and generate $1 billion in new tax revenues for the city, state and school district. Kenney administration officials said they would evaluate that.

In July the administration and Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., the city’s public-private economic-development agency, chose consultants to conduct two of the three studies, on economic- and community-impact. They said the third, to study the arena design, would have to wait because the Sixers have not submitted a design proposal.

Currently the Sixers are tenants at the Wells Fargo Center, the South Philadelphia arena that’s owned by Comcast Spectacor, which also owns the Flyers.

The company is completing a nearly $400 million renovation that it says has created an essentially new venue, but the Sixers, owned and operated by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, say that doesn’t change the fact that the building will be 35 years old when their lease expires in 2031.

“We won’t be playing in Wells Fargo Center when our current lease is up,” Harris Blitzer CEO Tad Brown told the Washington Square West Civic Association in June. “We are going to be playing in a home of our own.”

That would allow the Sixers to take control of virtually all the spending that goes on in and around their arena, from tickets and food to luxury boxes and T-shirts, and increase the value of a team that Forbes estimates is worth $3.1 billion.

Chinatown leaders say they’ve lost confidence in the veracity of the Sixers’ statements about the arena and in the city’s desire to conduct a fair and impartial review. As fall nears, they’re working to broaden their coalition and gaining support from pastors and organizations who see gentrification and displacement as a human-rights issue.

“One thing that’s been made clear over the past year is how many people, especially people with power and resources, do not think about Chinatown and do not know Chinatown — what drives business, the culture, the history, the people,” said Mohan Seshadri, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, which helped lead a big June demonstration against the arena that shut down Center City streets.

Activists are focusing on Squilla, calling on the Council member to “keep his word” that the arena would not go forward unless community concerns were addressed. Philadelphia’s tradition of “councilmanic prerogative” effectively gives him veto power over land-use decisions in his district.

Squilla told The Inquirer that he expects all his colleagues to weigh in on the arena, given its citywide importance. And said he would definitely keep his word — but his commitment to go forward only with community approval meant all communities, not just Chinatown.

The proposal can proceed without Chinatown’s acquiescence, he said, if it’s endorsed by all or most other stakeholders, such as SEPTA and the Washington Square West Civic Association.

He stressed his uncertainty that the Sixers’ fall timeline is feasible, and questioned the value of introducing legislation that would only have to start over in January.

“I don’t see a point in that,” Squilla said. “Maybe that fouls up their timeline again, and that’s unfortunate.”