City Council members voted Thursday morning to give preliminary approval to the 76ers’ controversial proposal to build an arena in Center City, likely ending a two-and-a-half-year saga that pitted the NBA franchise against leaders from neighboring Chinatown and paving the way for the transformation of the Market East corridor once the arena opens in 2031.
Legislation needed to approve the $1.3 billion project is not expected to come up for a final vote before the council’s Dec. 19 meeting, the last of the year. However, Thursday’s vote at the Committee of the Whole meeting, which includes all Council members, almost guaranteed its adoption.
Thursday’s vote represents a major legislative achievement for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, ending her first year in office, and a significant victory for politically powerful construction unions that backed the project and could gain thousands of jobs. On the other hand, it’s a loss for some leaders of the city’s progressive movement, who opposed the stadium from the beginning, and for Comcast, which through a subsidiary owns the 76ers’ current home, the Wells Fargo Center.
The commission voted 12-4 to approve the arena legislation, with council members Jamie Gauthier, Rue Landau, Nicolas O’Rourke and Jeffery “Jay” Young Jr. they objected. Council member Kendra Brooks, who also opposed the arena, was absent.
Negotiations between the 76ers and council members dragged on for weeks, with the final point of contention being the size of the project’s community benefits agreement, which is intended to fund activities that could ease the project’s burden on neighboring businesses and residents, particularly in Chinatown.
The 76ers initially offered $50 million to the CBA, but lawmakers urged the team to go further. The Save Chinatown Coalition called on the band to pay $300 million, which was welcomed by lawmakers critical of the project, and Council Speaker Kenyatta Johnson at one point wavered on the possibility of passing legislation with a $100 million CBA even if the band didn’t do it. Disagree to this level of financing.
The legislation ultimately passed by the committee on Thursday included a $60 million CBA, marking a victory for the 76ers in the final stages of negotiations.
The arena is scheduled to open during the 2031–2032 NBA season, with demolition on the East Market Street site expected to begin in 2026.
The next step in the Council procedure is to submit the legislation to a first reading in the Council, which must take place at least one week before the final vote. The first reading would need to take place at Thursday’s council meeting to allow for a final vote on December 19. (If additional amendments are needed after the legislation is approved in committee, it would complicate the schedule because regular Council rules require an additional week for bills that were amended on the floor to be approved.)
The saga that led to Thursday’s vote will be remembered as a clash between a sports franchise that has called Philadelphia home since 1963 and a neighborhood that has been a haven for the city’s Asian-American community for 150 years. But he also witnessed a battle of the billionaires that pitted the owners of the 76ers against Comcast.
Hoping to move into their own home when their lease at Comcast Spectacor’s Wells Fargo Center expires in 2031, the 76ers first proposed building a fresh arena at Penn’s Landing in 2020, but the team lost out on a mixed-use project that was more consistent with urban planners’ predictions for this place.
Two years later, the team revealed its plan to build an arena that would replace the western portion of the Fashion District mall, with space from 10th to 11th Street and Market to Filbert Street. The team pitched the project as potentially transformative for the long-troubled Market East corridor and said it would be “privately funded” with no support from city taxpayers.
These claims have since been disputed. The 76ers have said they are open to state and federal grants. The city has agreed to allow the team to make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTS, in lieu of paying regular property, employ and occupancy taxes, which will save the team millions annually. SEPTA says opening the concourse — atop the Jefferson Regional Rail Station — will cost the cash-strapped transit agency $20 million or more a year.
But the most vocal opposition to the arena’s construction has come from Chinatown residents and supporters, who are protesting the project soon after it was unveiled in 2022. The district’s boundaries abut the proposed site, and community leaders believe it would displace residents and businesses there.
A series of public relations blunders repeatedly cast doubt on the project’s political prospects, and the team publicly flirted with accepting an offer to move to the Camden waterfront thanks to $400 million in New Jersey tax breaks.
However, the chances of approval of the Center City proposal appear long since Parker emerged from a crowded Democratic primary for mayor in 2023.
It appears that the 76ers gave money to a dim money group that supports fifth rounder Jeff Brown, so the fresh mayor does not owe her victory to the 76ers. But her campaign has benefited greatly from hefty spending by construction unions, led by her longtime ally Ryan Boyer, president of the Workers’ District Council.
Unions stand to gain years of steady work and have played a key role in creating momentum in this arena.
