The Eagles won a playoff game yesterday (Go Birds!) and quite unexpectedly, the local basketball team was perhaps a bigger story. Since the summer of 2022, we’ve been writing about 76 Place, the proposed new Sixers arena at 10th & Market. The project went through a few different iterations, required countless hours of public meetings, and the process seemed like it culminated at the end of last year, when City Council passed the necessary legislation to turn this…

into this:

Yesterday, a few hours before kickoff, word started trickling out that the Market East arena would not be moving forward after all, and that the Sixers would be staying in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The new plan called for a new arena, shared by the Sixers and Flyers, to be opened by 2031. You know, kinda like the arrangement we’ve had in this town since the Spectrum opened in 1967.
If you’re wondering how we got here, you’re not going to get an answer to that question today, and honestly we may never know. Were the efforts over the last 2.5+ years the result of a legitimate effort by the owners of the 76ers to move to a new arena in downtown Philadelphia? Or was it a massive pump fake that we all bit on, to improve the organization’s negotiating position with Comcast Spectacor, the owner of the Flyers and the Wells Fargo Center? If that’s the case, has the team been waiting for the favorable vote from City Council to push things forward, hence the timing of this change of plans? Did the vocal community opposition have any impact? Did the NBA put pressure on the Sixers to make the shift? Was there political pressure? Or was this pivot a purely economic decision?
Earlier today, Mayor Parker, accompanied by Council President Johnson and representatives from HSBE (Sixers ownership), the Flyers, Comcast, and other stakeholders, held a press conference on the subject. We learned that this agreement came together rather quickly, over the last two weeks or so, with local officials only learning about the new plans in the last few days. It’s clear that the elected officials did not see this coming and were not thrilled that so much time and political capital had been spent on a proposal that is not moving forward. That being said, they publicly gave the impression that they’re just as happy with the new plan and are expecting that the partnership between HBSE and Comcast will yield significant improvements to the area around the stadiums.
Mayor Parker referenced The Battery, a mixed-use development surrounding Truist Park in Atlanta, as a model on which the partnership could look to redevelop the Sports Complex. The Battery includes a hotel, hundreds of apartments, retail, and public space, and was constructed in anticipation of the opening of Truist Park in 2017. You may recall, we told you about plans from Comcast Spectacor the Phillies to collectively redevelop the Sports Complex back in March of last year and were skeptical that this would actually move forward. Now, with the Sixers staying in South Philly and involved in its redevelopment, we can wrap our heads around the possibility of something like this coming to fruition.
As for Market East, HSBE and Comcast announced that they intend to partner on a redevelopment effort that does not include a new arena. As for what they will build, what the partnership will look like, when it will move forward, how the community will be involved, and how the community, the City, and the developers will come to an agreement on any of these things, we have no clue. From the press conference, it seems like nobody knows at this time, and we can appreciate that, given how quickly everything has seemingly come together. We hope, given all the time and energy that’s gone into this process thus far, that everyone involved stays true to what they said today and does indeed participate in bringing Market East back to its rightful place as a trophy commercial corridor in Philadelphia.
One more part of the puzzle: it sure looks like the NBA promised with a wink and a nudge that Philadelphia would get a WNBA team out of all of this. This was discussed at the press conference as well, and is frankly overdue in this sports-crazed town. Could the Philadelphia Sisters also play in the new arena in South Philly? It sure feels likely, after today.
With so many questions still unanswered, we can’t quite decide how we feel about the latest arena news. If everyone does what they say they’re going to do, and we end up with a revitalized Market East and a new neighborhood around the stadiums, then we’ll call this the best possible outcome. But if 2031 rolls around and we still have a failing mall in Market East and a sparkly new arena but no other construction in South Philly, we’ll have the polar opposite view of the situation. Only time will tell, and as more details come to light on both plans, we’ll hopefully be able to formulate an informed opinion on the subject. In the meantime, with the Sixers and Flyers both expecting to play in a new arena in 2031, perhaps one or both teams would be kind enough to win a championship in the meantime?