Proposed Sixers arena site would expand across Filbert Street

Backers of the Philadelphia 76ers arena in Center City say they are now prepared to increase the size of the proposed site, from its original location in the 1000 block of Market Street across adjacent Filbert Street onto the current Greyhound bus terminal property, which the arena would replace.

“We have that under contract,” confirmed David Adelman, the Philadelphia developer working with Sixers managing partners Josh Harris and David Blitzer to build a new arena. He declined to provide more details about the arrangement, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Greyhound has lately asked for help from public officials in relocating to make way for the next user. Greyhound and the station property’s New York owner, Hany Arnut’s Criterion Holdings LLC, didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

“They informed me their lease would be going to end in the next few years. They are starting to consider alternative sites,” said Anuj Gupta, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Pa.).

The Sixers development group hopes to take over the one-way block of Filbert Street between the Fashion District Philadelphia mall and the bus station. If the group gets city approval, it expects to build the $1.3 billion arena between 2026 and 2031.

The site described in the announcement July 21 would grow from a proposed 118,000 square feet, including the Market Street property, which Fashion District Philadelphia owner Macerich has agreed should be redeveloped for the project, to about 175,000 square feet by adding the street and the bus property.

Sidewalk-to-sidewalk, the ground under the arena would be larger than Madison Square Garden in New York and TD Garden in Boston and comparable to contemporary stadiums in Anaheim, Calif., Brooklyn, N.Y., Dallas and Toronto, Adelman said.

That would yield more room for businesses, which Adelman says should be open even when Sixers games or other events aren’t scheduled.

Adelman said the developers hope to attract “authentic businesses from Chinatown to be incorporated” into the new arena “along with regional and national brands.” He noted that the footprint “will not displace one business or resident” in Chinatown.

Owners representing 15 area Chinese American business and cultural associations met in a 10th Street office Friday to discuss the arena’s likely effect and what collective stance they should take.

“I need to learn more,” said Andy Liu, owner of Home Line Realty, one of 20 leaders in attendance in a second-floor meeting room.

“It could increase property values a lot. There are many people who would like to make more money from that,” said Steve Zhu, head of the Greater Philadelphia Chinese Restaurant Association, who last month signed a letter circulated by Asian Americans United that was skeptical of the project.

City Councilmember At-Large David Oh, a Republican, told the group that he shared initial skepticism as to whether an arena would benefit the neighborhood, or whether the owners might use the plan to press their current landlord, Comcast, into making concessions to keep the team as a tenant at its South Philadelphia arena, the Wells Fargo Center.

Oh urged business owners and residents to pick leaders and spokespeople and to invite arena proponents to make a more detailed pitch. A united Chinatown, he said, could more likely ensure that, if the arena is built, community members could extract useful concessions from the developers so the neighborhood is more likely to grow and prosper rather than wither.

The arena developers have made the project website available in Simplified Chinese characters, along with English, and Adelman said they had been meeting with people in Chinatown.

The neighborhood is home to about 5,000 people, about half of whom live in federally subsidized apartments developed by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. since the 1960s, according to its executive director, John Chin. A majority of the 22,000 China-born people in the city live in Northeast Philadelphia and other neighborhoods miles from Chinatown, but some immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants visit the district to shop or worship, people at the meeting said.

Among concerns expressed at the meeting was traffic on game days and when other events are scheduled at the arena.

The Sixers group has said it expected half of fans to arrive at the planned 18,500-capacity arena on SEPTA’s suburban and city trains that stop under the site or walk from the nearby PATCO line from New Jersey, compared with about one-quarter who now arrive by subway or bus to the more remote South Philly arena.

Adelman said the relocation of intercity buses away from Filbert Street would reduce some of the heavy traffic that can slow Chinatown streets.

Asked where the Greyhound station should go if it leaves Filbert Street, Center City District chief Paul Levy noted that possibilities city officials considered in the past included the former police administration building, the Roundhouse, at 750 Race St., and the neighborhood of 30th Street Station, where rival bus lines already pick up and drop off passengers.

Wherever it goes, Greyhound will have to improve on a history of “bad behavior” by loiterers outside its terminal, said Gupta, who before joining Evans’ staff in 2020 managed the nearby Reading Terminal Market. “You have to be forthright in addressing those issues.”

The Filbert Street bus terminal location was the result not of planning, but of unexpected need and opportunity, Levy said.

The terminal site, at 1001-23 Filbert St., had been home to the former Harrison Stores building, which was undergoing renovation in 1984 when it caught fire and burned.

It was demolished the next year and replaced with the low-rise bus station, which moved there to accommodate Philadelphia developer Ron Rubin’s high-rise construction project at the station’s former home, 1735 Market St., now the BNY Mellon office tower with its pyramid top.

Rubin later owned the Gallery mall complex, now the Fashion District Philadelphia, which includes the block of stores that have been set aside as the Market Street base for the new arena.