A legislative deal allowing the 76ers to move forward with plans to build a $1.3 billion Center City arena has not won the support of a majority of lawmakers, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said Thursday.
Negotiations with the team are ongoing, he added, with Council members expressing concerns over the $50 million community benefits agreement, minority and female representation in the project, displacement of residents and businesses from Chinatown, traffic and other issues.
“We need nine votes here in order to move this process forward,” Johnson told reporters. “We don’t see nine votes at the moment.”
Council has 10 district and seven at-large members. A meeting to consider voting the arena package out of the Committee of the Whole, which includes all members, was scheduled Thursday morning but was later postponed until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 11.
Once out of committee, all bills typically need to be read into the record at two sessions prior to a final vote. While Council’s last meeting before its winter recess is scheduled for Dec. 12, legislative leaders are likely to call for another session Dec. 19.
Johnson said the bills could remain pending until the new year; though Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the 76ers, has said the legislation needs to be approved this month in order for project to remain on schedule.
The team aims to begin demolition in 2026 and move into the arena in time for the start of the 2031-32 NBA season, when the franchise’s lease is up at the Wells Fargo Center.
HBSE officials signaled last week that they were open to negotiating a new CBA total, after testifying last month that the franchise could not justify going above the $50 million it agreed to pay over the course of three decades as part of a deal with Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration.
“I think that that’s something that has been a constant message we’ve heard from members, that the hard number of $50 million is not something that everybody feels comfortable with,” Councilmember Mark Squilla said Thursday. “What that number is above that, we don’t know.”
Squilla’s district includes the site of the proposed 18,500-seat arena, along a section of Market Street between 10th and 11th streets. A section of the Fashion District mall would be demolished to make way for the venue, known for now as 76 Place at Market East.
Activists and community organizations that have opposed the arena, including the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, have recently pressed lawmakers to oppose any CBA worth less than $300 million — a number that has also been embraced by Council members Kendra Brooks, Nicolas O’Rourke and Jeffrey Young Jr.
“Joel Embiid recently signed a 3-year contract extension totaling $193 million,” Brooks and O’Rourke, both of the Working Families Party, said in a statement Friday. “That’s three years versus 30 years. The MVP makes more money in one year than the city and Chinatown will receive over the next 30 years if the arena gets built.”
No votes on 76 place-related legislation took place at Council’s weekly meeting Thursday, Dec. 5, but the arena debate still loomed large.
During the public comment period, Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United, criticized Parker and many Council members for not including community stakeholders in talks with the team.
“Let’s delay this arena,” she said. “Let’s make sure we get the right deal for the city, or vote no.”
A short time later, after another anti-arena audience member spoke up, union construction workers – who have been a constant presence in Council chambers since the legislation was introduced in October – erupted in shouts of “build it.”
