What’s going on here is a little different than the scenario that you described. In this case, the Sixers—who have played for decades in an area of South Philly called the Sports Complex— announced they wanted to build a new arena just for themselves. They didn’t want to share space with the hockey team. The Sixers said they wouldn’t ask for any city money. The keyword is city money. They’re building this with their own money, but you have to put a little asterisk next to that, because there are various, nondirect subsidies to support this project, and they haven’t ruled out requesting state money. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, they’re building this with their own money. There’s still a number of controversial things about this, besides the fact that we already have a sports complex that’s transit- and highway-accessible.

Yes, and acres and acres and acres of service parking. I used to look down my nose at it because of all that parking. But throughout this debate over the Sixers, I’ve gotten newfound respect for the place because, while there’s a lot of wasted surface parking, you can easily take the subway there. It’s located at the confluence of two highways that serve two states. It’s about 3 miles from downtown. Philly is very flat, and I can easily bike there from my house. Some people can even walk there, since there are neighborhoods adjacent to the sports complex. 

The Sixers arena would be located at the epicenter of downtown, two blocks from City Hall. It would replace one block of an enclosed urban shopping mall that has been struggling. So the context here is quite different from what we’ve seen in other cities. Although we talk a lot about downtown arenas, most aren’t technically located downtown. After spending a lot of time studying these projects, I realized that most so-called downtown arenas are located on the edge of the downtown core, often on the far side of a highway ring road. The location would be close enough to downtown to justify building or extending a transit line. But there would still be easy highway access and room for large parking garages. The big difference here is that the Sixers’ arena would be located in the very heart of downtown, in an already dense, walkable area. The site sits on top of a major transit station, which sounds good, but also raises a lot of construction challenges.

They currently share space with the Philadelphia Flyers in the Wells Fargo Center, which is owned by Comcast Specator, and say it has become increasingly difficult to schedule basketball games because the calendar is packed with hockey, concerts, and other events. The Sixers say that having their own arena would give them more control over their schedule. And, of course, they would get naming rights, concession fees, and digital sign revenue. They would also control some of the development rights for adjacent parcels. I think they saw they could make a lot more money having their own place.

Since this all started, the relationship between the Sixers and Comcast Spectacor has become increasingly fraught, and now it looks like there’s no going back. Comcast has tried to convince the Sixers to stay. They’ve even told them: “Please stay. We’ll split the concessions with you, we’ll give you other perks. We’ll work it out.” But it’s like a bad marriage. It just can’t be repaired.

It’s a couple of billionaire finance guys who operate Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. The same company also owns the New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center in Newark. One of them, Josh Harris, recently bought the Washington Commanders in the NFL.

They say it will cost $1.5 billion. I don’t think that the Sixers’ original idea was to build a downtown arena. A couple of years ago they made a play for a riverfront site. But because the downtown shopping mall is struggling, they saw an opportunity to get a prominent site at a good price. The mall, originally called The Gallery, was the first urban shopping mall in the country, and the brainchild of planner Edmund Bacon. It was completely renovated in 2019 at a cost of about $500 million, but had the bad luck to reopen right before the pandemic. One reason the mall, now called the Fashion District, is reasonably robust is because it sits on top of a major transit station, Jefferson Station. There are connections to an underground subway, underground trolleys, and a subway-like line that serves South Jersey.

On paper, it’s an incredible site. When the Sixers first announced that they’d made a deal to occupy one of the three blocks of this indoor mall, a lot of people were thrilled, because Market Street, where the mall is located, is struggling to remain a viable shopping street. But many planners and architects believe—and I agree—the site is too small for the program. It’s stuffing the proverbial 10 pounds into a 5-pound bag.

It sounds great on paper, but in Philly everything is jammed close together. Just half a block behind this mall is our Chinatown, which is one of the biggest ones in America. It’s a very vibrant place, a real neighborhood. Families live there, kids go to school there, people do their shopping there. It’s one of the liveliest parts of the city. And it’s also a neighborhood that’s been badly treated. There’s a highway to the north that cuts them off. The convention center, which is three blocks long, hems them in on the west side. When they heard that the Sixers were going to build this arena right on their front doorstep, they were not happy. They worried about traffic, worried about another monster building that would be empty most of the time. The arena would be adjacent to the convention center. 

I’m also concerned about the effects the arena would have on both the train station and Market Street. Market Street used to be the prime shopping district in the city, the original main street of Philadelphia. The mall was an attempt to save this traditional retail street, but it was an inward-looking mall. Even after they renovated it in 2019 and tried to open up the facade, it still wasn’t very successful.

And the same can be said for sports venues, right?

Absolutely. When I first heard this, I thought, Oh, maybe this will be good for Market Street. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, Wow, at most, this building will be active 150 nights a year. That’s their number. Market Street needs 24/7 activity, so how will a big, dark box save this retail corridor? There are also very few two-arena cities where the arenas actually make money, because they basically split the business. The Wells Fargo Center right now has about 200–220 events a year.

If there’s two arenas, there’s not going to be 400 events. They’re going to split the business. So let’s accept the Sixers’ claim, 150 nights a year—I don’t believe it, but let’s accept it. That means that 200 nights a year, it’s empty. Plus it’s empty during the day. I don’t see how that does anything to revive Market Street as an active place. Ironically, there’s a billion-dollar development across the street that includes two apartment towers, a hotel, restaurants, and a medical tower. It’s transformed that stretch of Market Street. My view is that Market Street would be much better off with more high-rise housing that would actually put people on the street. It’s perfect for that.

Oh, it would feed all of Center City. So the more I thought about this claim—that the arena would revive Market Street—the more dubious it seemed. And then another big issue: It sounds great to put an arena on top of a train station, but look at what Madison Square Garden did to Penn Station. One of the reasons those platforms are so narrow and hard to navigate is because there are all these columns supporting the arena bowl.

Something similar would happen to Jefferson Station. I want to put in a plug for Jefferson Station, which was created in the late ’70s, early ’80s, when they united the old Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad. These two systems went bankrupt and were taken over by the public. In the late ’60s, early ’70s, Philadelphia had this brilliant idea of combining them. These two incredible rail systems come together at Jefferson Station. The station is beautiful, too. While it’s underground, the station is three stories high. It has windows at street level to allow natural light to pour in, illuminating a wonderful tile mural. The station is almost like a European station. But if they build the arena, they would block the windows and lower the ceilings. The station would lose a lot of volume. 

I was just reading this consultant’s report about what would happen to the train station. Our regional transit system, SEPTA, may have to close the station during part of the construction, because they’re building over electrified rail. According to a consultant’s report, it would “result in a station that is darker, smaller and more difficult to access and navigate than the current station.” 

The Sixers not only claim that this arena will revive Market Street, but say it’s going to revive SEPTA. They claim that all these suburbanites are going to take regional rail to night games. Well, SEPTA is grossly underfunded and can’t afford to run the regional rail trains more than once an hour. It’s kind of caught in a doom loop. If you’re only running suburban trains once an hour, people say, “Well, I could drive much faster, and I don’t want to be in the city at night and wait an hour for a train.” As a result, many people are skeptical that this will do anything to help transit. Meanwhile, it might destroy Jefferson Station.

The mayor, Cherelle Parker, is gung-ho in favor of it, as is a lot of the business community. We’ve just had two weeks of hearings in the city council. There’s a huge anti-arena movement, not just in Chinatown. Everything in Philadelphia is cheek-by-jowl. There’s another neighborhood a little further removed, called Washington Square West, which also opposes the arena. A coalition of church groups has also spoken out against the arena. But the trade unions are very much in favor of it. City Council was supposed to vote on it this week, but they’ve put off a final decision until the 19th.

SEPTA, the transit authority.

I wouldn’t say that. They’re walking a fine line. They don’t want to be in the position of saying, “No, this is bad for us.” So they hired a consultant to look at all the issues. I was really struck by this consultant’s report, because it’s very forthright about the possible impacts on the station. They also say there’s incredible risks to the system. If the station is shut down for an extended period, it will cost SEPTA ridership and money. They will have to pay quite a few staff people to work with the Sixers during construction. If they’ll have to put on more trains, that’ll cost a lot of money. The consultants estimate that it could cost them an additional $20–$25 million annually, and SEPTA’s hanging on by a thread.

The Sixers claim that they can get 40% of the 18,000 people to take transit. The city did an impact report that concluded that if they achieve 40% transit ridership, the arena would be workable. But if they fail to achieve the 40% transit ridership and, say, 70% drive, the studies say there will be gridlock and chaos. Most of that traffic will be going through Chinatown, because that’s one of the main access streets. Few people believe that the Sixers can get 40% transit ridership.

The Barclays Center in Brooklyn and, of course, Madison Square Garden—I saw a chart comparing them—both get over 40%.

And there’s a Long Island Railroad terminal and lots of subway lines there. Everyone points to Barclays as a comparison. But Barclays does not sit directly over the train station. It sits adjacent to one. From a construction point of view, it’s hard enough to build next to active rail; it’s really difficult to build over active rail. This is a really tight site, just over 4 acres. Madison Square Garden is a 9-acre site. Because the site is so small, there’s no room for a plaza, no room for gathering, and dangerously little stacking space. So when everybody leaves the arena at the same time and they all come flooding down those stairs, like water down a hill, they have to go somewhere. And so, right now, it looks like they may have to close a lane of street traffic on the side of the arena to manage the crowds. Oh, and the worst part is, one of those streets is the main access to Jefferson Hospital’s emergency room, which is the primary emergency room for a huge central part of the city.

So those are all very complex things to work out. 

Not really. City planning has really been marginalized here. The political leadership wants this project, so the planning department has been asked to pave the way for that to happen. They’ve been working with the Sixers. It’s telling that another agency called the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. conducted all the impact studies, not the Planning Department. Today there was a Planning Commission meeting in which they rubber-stamped all these enabling code changes to make the arena possible.

Oh, the political establishment is totally in favor. City council will almost certainly approve it. There might be two or three or four dissenting votes. But one of the interesting things I saw in this consultant’s report for SEPTA is: Jefferson Station was built with a lot of federal money, and an entity called the Federal Transportation Authority has to approve this big footing of the train station. The report says—and you can take this with a grain of salt—but the FTA may not approve it, because it really degrades the train station. That would be amazing if it happened, if the federal government said, “No, you can’t wreck the train station.” But assuming they do build it, they’re going to have to block the windows, drop columns on the platform. It will become a different place.

The Sixers’ lease at the Wells Fargo Center ends in 2031. That’s when they want to have this open. They would demolish the mall next year, start construction, and try to finish by 2031. You began by asking me: are they being subsidized? Not direct subsidies, but some people think they eventually will eventually ask for them. They’ve budgeted $1.5 billion for it. I’ve talked to architects who think that’s going to increase at least by 25%, and they will seek state funding. It’s a complicated site, because it has multiple owners. It’s four layers deep, and each layer is owned or controlled by someone different.

They have this PILOT [payment in lieu of taxes] agreement with the city. They won’t pay real estate taxes. The city will own the site, and the Sixers will lease it back and pay a PILOT, which will be less than what they would’ve paid in taxes.

Yes. The city is striking a street so the arena will fit the site, and they’re getting that real estate for free. The Sixers have offered a community benefits agreement worth about $50 million. That’s become controversial because the mayor wants to use that money for other things on her agenda, and Chinatown is angry about that.

There are negotiations going on right now to increase the CBA, so Chinatown would get more money. There are concerns about gentrification. The planning commission today did pass a zoning overlay of Chinatown to lower the height limit, with the thinking being that, if anybody wanted to build a giant high-rise hotel, they would have to jump through some extra hoops to do that in Chinatown, and that would somehow protect Chinatown.

I see it more as a degradation of city planning, because this whole thing has been driven by the Sixers and the city has just been a supplicant, so grateful that someone wants to build something. They’ve really given away the store. 

Featured image via 76Place and Gensler.