By Linn Washington Jr. 

The controversial plan to build a new arena in downtown Philadelphia for the 76ers professional basketball team won approval from that city’s legislative body during a raucous session on December 19^th. 

Some arena opponents were forcibly removed from the Council’s City Hall chamber before votes were taken on a package of arena-related measures.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker sees a boon for the future of the city from the planned $1.3-billion, 18,500-seat facility, formally known as 76 Place.

However, opponents decry the project as a giveaway to the billionaire owners of the 76ers, who negotiated substantial tax breaks from City Hall. Before the City Council approval vote, opponents waved dollar bills calling Council members supporting the project “sellouts.” 

Parker, who took office in January 2024 as the first female mayor in Philadelphia’s 300+-year history, backs the arena construction for providing needed construction jobs and business opportunities in the most impoverished big city in the United States. 

Parker, an African American, leads a city where 1-in-5 live below the poverty line and 1-in-10 live in deep poverty. 

African Americans and Latinos comprise the largest segment of impoverished Philadelphians. Historically mega-bucks’ projects in downtown Philadelphia provide little benefit to non-whites, an exclusion Parker says she will end.

Opponents of the arena, planned to occupy a few blocks of space in Philadelphia’s densely crowded downtown, contend the project will destroy the city’s Chinatown located directly behind the planned arena, will impede access to the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the downtown area during games/events at the arena, will spur gentrification in adjacent neighborhoods and will require tax dollars despite 76er owners funding the project privately.

The 76ers currently play home games at a facility in the city’s sports complex, located in South Philadelphia. That complex also houses facilities for the city’s professional baseball, football, and hockey teams. There is easy access at that complex to two interstate highways and the city’s subway system. That complex’s easy access to interstates plus its acres of parking lots are not available at the planned downtown 76 Place location.

Opponents cite a flaw 76ers team owners concede is problematic. Team owners state success for 76 Place requires 40 percent of attendees to utilize public transportation. Currently, 85 percent of 76er attendees drive to the complex. Philadelphia’s financially floundering public transit system cannot afford the additional commuter rail service required for 76 Place and 76er owners oppose providing any funding for needed rail upgrades.

Mayor Parker received critical backing for 76 Place from the city’s African American Chamber of Commerce, the Black Clergy of Philadelphia, and Philadelphia’s NAACP branch. Those three entities praise the project as benefitting Blacks with jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities, based on assurances from 76ers owners.

The Save Chinatown coalition opposing 76 Place includes over 100 entities that are multi-racial, working-to-upper-middle class. Over 70 percent of Philadelphians oppose the construction of 76 Place according to surveys conducted by opponents.

The new arena will either burnish Mayor Parker’s legacy or prove to be her folly.