City Council holds first hearing on proposed Sixers arena; who will pay SEPTA construction costs?

On the first day of Philadelphia City Council’s high-profile hearings on the 76ers’ arena proposal, lawmakers raised concerns about the project’s potential impact on SEPTA, whether the $50 million community benefits agreement negotiated by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker was sufficient, and why some city leaders appeared to be rushing to approve the proposal by the end of the year.

Tuesday’s six-hour meeting of Council’s Committee of the Whole — which includes all 17 city lawmakers — was the first of eight scheduled days of hearings on the $1.3 billion plan, and it featured testimony from top members of the Parker administration.

If the arena project is to be approved by the end of the year — as the 76ers have requested and as Parker is aiming for ― lawmakers would have to vote it out of committee in just three weeks. Although the proposal was first announced two and a half years ago, the legislation Council needed to approve it was not introduced by Councilmember Mark Squilla until Oct. 24, leading to a compressed timeline for it to be approved by the team’s December deadline.

The 76ers have pledged to donate $50 million as part of a community benefits agreements since shortly after the team unveiled the proposal in the summer of 2022, when Mayor Jim Kenney was still in office.

Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young Jr. asked Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s team whether they attempted to get more more money of the team after she took office in January.

“When we got here on day one — Jan. 1 — $50 million was negotiated in the CBA, and what we wanted to ensure is that we stretched that,” Thurman said.

Progressive Council members who oppose the 76ers arena proposal on Tuesday questioned why the city is prioritizing approving the project this fall when Philadelphia faces other pressing concerns, including what the election of Donald Trump will mean for the city.

“We have a housing crisis that we’re failing to address and an impending Trump administration that has Philadelphia as its target,” Brooks said during the first day of hearings on the team’s plan to build a new arena. “We have so many other things that we should be focused on besides pleasing Josh Harris, David Blitzer, and David Adelman,” she said, referring to the 76ers’ owners.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke then said that lawmakers were scheduled to participate in 41 hours of committee hearings and meetings in the coming weeks and that there are only 69 days until the inauguration of Trump, who has vowed to cut funding to cities that oppose his policies, such as so-called sanctuary cities like Philly.

Before the lunch break, Council member Isaiah Thomas asked the administration to provide details on how often it had met with leaders in Chinatown, where opposition has been huge. People there tell him they’ve been shut out, he said.

John Mondlak, chief of staff to Planning and Development Director Jessie Lawrence, ticked off a list of nearly a dozen meetings dating back more than a year at which he said Chinatown representatives were included. Some suggestions from Chinatown leaders were incorporated, for instance, in the formulation of how the city’s neighborhood impact study would be conducted.

He clarified after the exchange that the Chinatown representatives were part of larger meetings that included officials from the city and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp.

Several City Council members on Tuesday expressed concerns about costs that SEPTA may incur due to the construction and operation of the 76ers' proposed arena.

Michael Carroll, the city's deputy managing for transportation and infrastructure, reassured lawmakers that city taxpayers will not be used for any costs related to the arena's impact on SEPTA operations.

"That's not something the administration would contemplate," Carroll said. "That responsibility is going to be the subject of conversation between SEPTA and the Sixers."

The issue of access to emergency care at Jefferson Hospital was raised when Council President Kenyatta Johnson asked administration officials if patients might be impacted.

Some doctors and health-care providers have argued that arena traffic could delay patients from accessing potentially life-saving care. Care workers organized as “No Arena Philly Med” insist the development “would harm patient health.”

On Tuesday, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker's administration said that was not so.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker's chief of staff Tiffany W. Thurman told City Council members Tuesday that the 76ers' plan to build a new arena in Center City to open 2031 was an unprecedented opportunity that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues for the city, school district, and state. She also said it would provide economic opportunity for Philadelphians who help build the arena or work in it.

"Under this deal we both keep our hometown 76ers playing in Philadelphia at least until [2061] and jumpstart a broader, city-led focus on the preservation of Chinatown and the revitalization of Market East," Thurman said Tuesday while testifying before Council's Committee of the Whole. "Unlike prior deals with our sports facilities ... there are no city funds being invested in the arena and no related debt service."

Thurman's testimony largely rehashed the details of the deal the city struck with the team, which Parker announced in an hourslong presentation in September shortly after she endorsed the project.

At the start of Tuesday's high-profile hearing on the 76ers' proposal to build a new downtown arena, City Council members first took a procedural step to ensure all arena-related legislation would be heard by a single committee, and one member said the fact that the vote was needed was a sign that the legislative process to approve the arena is being rushed.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson's plan is to have the legislative package, which includes more than a dozen bills and resolutions, considered together by the Committee of the Whole, which includes all 17 Council members and is convened to consider major issues like the city budget. He has said a final vote on the arena will take place in December if a majority of Council members support it.

But one bill was apparently instead referred to the Committee on Rules. Lawmakers on Tuesday voted to move that bill to the Committee of the Whole, which then began considering the full package of legislation.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker's chief of staff Tiffany W. Thurman will be the lead witness testifying on behalf of the administration at today's City Council hearing on the 76ers' proposal to build a new arena.

Tuesday's meeting of Council's Committee of the Whole, which includes all 17 Council members, is the first of eight scheduled hearing days to consider the team's plan to construct and build a new facility that would open on East Market Street in time for the 2031-32 season. Council is expected to take a final vote on the arena in December.

All witnesses at Tuesday's hearing will be administration officials, who will lay out Parker's plan for how the city would work with the team as it builds and operates the arena and answer questions from Council members.

As City Council prepared to open hearings on the Sixers' plan for a downtown basketball arena on Tuesday, about 60 opponents of the project convened what they called “The People’s Hearing” outside City Hall.

Parents, educators, faith leaders and others stood against the $1.55 billion development, saying Council should focus on the needs of the city — public schools, housing, and other areas — and not on the wants of the team’s owners.

"This is something that is being forced down our throats by billionaires,” Seth Anderson-Oberman, director of Reclaim Philadelphia, told reporters shortly before the event began. "Why is City Council clearing their entire schedule to accommodate billionaires? … We need the Democratic Party to fight for working people.”

Philadelphia City Council began hearings Tuesday on legislation intended to push forward construction of a controversial new $1.55 billion 76ers arena in Center City.

Today's hearing is being streamed live on City Council's website.

City Councilmember Mark Squilla introduced 13 pieces of legislation last month that are backed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. Hearings are expected to last through December, and will include testimony from administration officials, members of the Sixers, and stakeholders both for and against the project.

The Sixers have said their proposed new arena could open for the 2031 season if City Council approves the legislation needed to begin the project by the end of this year.

If that happens, the team’s plan would be to start demolishing the western third of the Fashion District in 2026 and begin construction in 2028.

Until then, the Sixers will continue to play in the Wells Fargo Center, which is owned by Comcast Spectacor and shared with the Flyers. The Sixers’ lease at the Wells Fargo Center expires in 2031, and Comcast Spectacor has joined the Phillies in a plan to turn much of the sports complex into a fan district.

The most vocal opposition to the project has come from residents in Chinatown, many of whom fear the project will dramatically change their neighborhood and cultural identity.

The proposed stadium at 10th and Market Streets would be built on the doorstep to Chinatown, and the city’s economic impact study found half of the small businesses in Chinatown would be negatively affected by the proposed arena. The report also warned that while no housing would be torn down in Chinatown, the arena’s presence could cause indirect displacement through gentrification and loss of cultural identity.

“The community meetings were all just smoke and mirrors,” said Chinatown resident Eric Lau. “I just want to make a big sign that says: ‘Cherelle Parker doesn’t care about Asian people.’”