By: Lucas Delgado
October 22, 2024
Photo Credit: NBA and Philadelphia 76ers
Through the start of the decade, the Philadelphia 76ers have been a consistent playoff level team in the NBA, representative of the booming sports scene in the City of Brotherly Love. Under owner Josh Harris, the team is looking for more opportunities to maximize their exposure and modernize their operations. In 2022, Harris Blitzer Entertainment announced plans for a new venue in 2022. Two years later, they have reached an agreement with the city, as Mayor Cherelle Parker has unveiled the details behind the agreement between both parties for 76 Place at Market East.
The arena is set to be financed without the city’s support, with an estimated $1.3 billion cost. The deal would begin in 2031 and would keep the Sixers in the city until 2061. The team will make an average payment of $6 million per year to the city, intended to support expanded opportunities for local businesses and residents. There is also a community benefit agreement (CBA) worth $50 million, targeting investments in education and economic development across Philadelphia. The agreement is projected to generate $700 million in tax revenue for the city, while also creating over a thousand jobs in construction and operations.
This deal marks a few historical milestones for a Philly-based sports venue. It will be the city’s first arena to have no public funding, bucking a trend set by the Wells Fargo Arena (currently used by the 76ers and NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers), Lincoln Financial Field (used by the NFL’s Eagles) and Citizens Bank Park (home of the MLB’s Phillies). More notably, it breaks a geographical trend amongst the city’s venues. The three arenas just listed all reside in the South Philadelphia East neighborhood, so close to each other that they effectively share the same parking lots. 76 Place at Market East will be just under four miles north in Center City, marking a decentralization of the city’s major venues.
While this decision to build a state of the art venue in the city’s downtown could make the city’s goals of economic growth much easier, the plan is still seeing pushback. Residents of Philadelphia’s Chinatown neighborhood (a block north of the proposed site) have voiced their concerns with developing such a major venue so close to the district, claiming that the proposal is rushed and will fail to serve community issues in a significant way. Vivian Chang, the executive director of Asian Americans United, argued against the agreement’s outlined community improvement plan: "It is outlandish that the mayor is unilaterally trying to impose a CBA on a project that lacks even the most basic studies on housing and rent costs, impacts on small businesses, livability, and transit access – issues that will impact the city for years to come, between multiple years of construction and long-term damage to traffic flow and access to emergency healthcare. We are united in opposition to the arena and the rushed, haphazard process surrounding it." These criticisms from Chinatown’s residents and advocates could serve to derail the agreement, as it is still subject to a vote from Philadelphia’s City Council. The 17 person council requires a nine person majority vote in order to pass the arena, and with two different perspectives at play, voters will have to weigh between the pros and cons of an arena-centric economic plan and the existing issues in the Chinatown neighborhood.
Even with dissenting opinions threatening to slow down the development, the plans for 76 Place at Market East seem to mark an interesting change in how the city of Philadelphia looks to approach their entertainment venues.
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