Welcome to the final week of Sixers arena public hearings.
The last public comment session for the controversial $1.3 billion project starts at 6 p.m. Monday and runs until 9 p.m. Some who were hoping to make their voices heard in Council chambers have run into a roadblock: as early as last Tuesday, members of the No Arena Coalition who attempted to sign up to testify reported receiving automated email responses that read “due to high volumes, we are no longer accepting anyone to sign up for public comment on December 2.” The messages encouraged would-be speakers to submit written comments to arena.hearings@phila.gov instead.
The final legislative hearings will take place Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 to 4 p.m.
It’s not set in stone when the Council will make its ultimate decision on the project. A Committee of the Whole vote is expected to take place by Dec. 12 at the latest, but it could also take place earlier than that — even before the end of this week. For procedural reasons, a second, final vote has to take place after that, but the same 17 Councilmembers will be voting in both instances and it’s not expected that the outcome would change between the first and second round. That final vote is expected to take place by Dec. 19.
It’s been an intense couple of weeks, and this one is bound to be no different. Here’s everything you need to know about what went down last week in the arena universe.
Preliminary measures passed with ease
The Council voted, 10-3, last Tuesday to pass two procedural bills that pave the way for the arena.
The first piece of legislation would lift the proposed arena site out of the area’s tax increment financing district, allowing the Sixers to avoid paying property taxes and contribute payments in lieu of taxes instead, as detailed in the team’s agreement with the Parker administration. (That measure was approved by Philadelphia’s School Board last week, as was required for it to move to the Council. Two board members opposed the approval. Though city officials presented the vote as routine, parents, teachers, and students speaking out at the vote urged board members to vote against it.)
The other piece of legislation would establish a special services district in the area surrounding the arena — from Broad Street to 8th Street and from Spring Garden Street to South Street — managed by a seven-member board.
Many observers see Council approving the arena as a foregone conclusion. This vote, though it was ultimately procedural and did not approve the arena itself, could certainly support that argument. The full legislative package will need nine votes to pass the 17-member council; these measures got 10, even with two of the Council’s likely “aye” votes absent that day. (Two consistent arena critics — Councilmembers Nicholas O’Rourke and Jeffrey Young Jr. — were also absent from the vote).
Councilmember Cindy Bass, who drew some praise from arena opponents for grilling Sixers officials in previous weeks’ hearings, voted “aye,” prompting a round of boos from activists in the audience.
Squilla presses Sixers to subsidize more SEPTA tix
Councilmember Mark Squilla, the Center City representative who introduced the arena’s legislative package, argued last week that the Sixers should go further to help out SEPTA.
The team’s CBA already earmarks $3 million over three years for incentives to get fans to take public transit, and last Tuesday Squilla told reporters that the Sixers had verbally agreed to put that toward free SEPTA and PATCO tickets for fans to get to the games for the first year after the arena opens. The Sixers confirmed this, the Inquirer reported, but clarified that they had only committed to subsidizing tickets for season-ticket holders, not all attendees.
Squilla took it further in the Council hearing, arguing that the Sixers should pay for tickets in subsequent years, too, if the team’s ridership goal of 40% public transit use by fans is not met.
Transit has become a sticking point in arena negotiations. That 40% threshold is crucial: research suggests that if too many fans drive to the games, the area could be clogged with gridlocked traffic. No one wants that, but advocates in the No Arena Coalition have been especially outspoken on the issue, arguing that gridlock would endanger the lives of patients trying to get to nearby Jefferson Hospital’s trauma center.
SEPTA, in the throes of a fiscal crisis, has said that it doesn’t have the funds to expand its operations and accommodate the influx in riders necessary to meet that goal. Mayor Parker’s administration and the Sixers have played hot potato on the issue, each staunchly saying they won’t be the ones to offer any more money.
Regardless of how SEPTA ultimately responds to Squilla’s request, the Councilmember is almost certainly a “yes” vote either way. He was the one to introduce the legislative package, has received support from the building trades unions that back the project, and previously argued that it wouldn’t make sense to require the sports team to subsidize transit.
Mayor Parker faces pushback as she rallies support
The Mayor held a town hall in her home neighborhood of Mount Airy last week, spending hours with about 100 residents in a local church to shore up support for the arena. She appealed heavily to the crowd’s shared memories of their own neighborhood, and of a more bustling Market Street of years past, to make her case. She also emphasized the potential for job creation, especially for Black and Brown Philadelphians.
Arena opponents have frequently seized on that last point to argue that Parker is working to pit communities of color against each other. Parker argues that Chinatown residents have nothing to fear from the development and that the entire city of Philadelphia would benefit from it. She flipped the script on anti-arena activists at the town hall, implying that they, not her, were pitting communities against each other. Parker also floated the idea that some opposition was coming from out-of-towners and online “bots.”
The town hall took place in Councilmember Cindy Bass’s district, and Bass herself helped advertise the event and was in the audience. Parker pointed out the Councilmember to the audience as she reminded them that the ultimate decision was in the hands of the Council.
Most of the attendees who spoke up with questions or comments were either against the arena or on the fence about it, citing a variety of reasons — from doubt that a positive economic impact would land to reluctance to take public transit to games. Chinatown was rarely cited as a reason for opposition.
Though no one in the room but the Councilmembers has any real say on how the city moves forward, the project has lacked broad grassroots support from Philadelphians without a direct business interest. No Arena Coalition members clad in their signature red shirts, along with other independent naysayers, have dominated most public comment sessions.
The ad hoc group Black Philly for Chinatown gathered together representatives and community activists for a press conference the morning after Parker’s town hall, making an opposite argument about how Black Philadelphians should relate to the project. Speakers dismissed the idea that the arena would generate positive economic and workforce development outcomes for Black communities, framing it as one of many projects that would only extract value from the city for billionaire developers without giving much back.
“I live in a community that’s being gentrified right now, OK. I don’t see a lot of Black developers. I don’t see a lot of Black construction companies. I don’t see a lot of Black workers doing those projects,” Gail Loney of the Stadium Stompers said about her home neighborhood of North Central Philadelphia.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
