Sixers will build new arena in South Philadelphia after deal reached with Comcast Spectacor; Philly to pursue WNBA team

The 76ers and Comcast Spectacor are partnering to build a new arena at the sports complex in South Philadelphia by 2031.

The new facility, formally announced during a marathon news conference Monday, will be the new home of the Sixers and Flyers. Under the deal, the Sixers and Comcast will also be equal partners in an effort to revitalize East Market Street, where the team planned to develop a $1.3 billion arena before striking a deal with the sports and entertainment giant.

Under the agreement, Comcast will acquire a minority stake in the Sixers.

“The journey to the best solution doesn’t always go in a straight line,” said Josh Harris, co-founder of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Sixers.

Lawmakers learned about the project Sunday, less than a month after they voted 12-5 to authorize the privately funded arena in Center City, a development that was steeped in controversy since it was announced more than two years ago. The decision followed a string of daylong hearings, hours of closed-door negotiations and hundreds of protests, rallies and press conferences organized by arena opponents.

The mayor, whose administration spent months touting the controversial project, signed those bills into law just before Christmas. And greenlighting the arena was considered a defining moment of her first year in office.

Parker, labor leader respond

During Monday’s news conference, Parker called the Comcast deal a “curveball that none of us saw coming,” but said the agreement represents an “exciting” and “unprecedented” opportunity for the city.

“As the mayor of the city of Philadelphia, our CEO, I don’t have the luxury of wallowing in this 180. This is a celebration for the city,” said Parker.

Ryan Boyer, business manager for the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella group that strongly supported the Center City arena, echoed those sentiments after Monday’s news conference. He also applauded the agreement, which he said has great “potential.”

“I don’t deal in emotion. I deal in facts. It is what it is,” Boyer said, referring to the abandoned arena deal.

Monday’s news conference provided scant information about why the Sixers changed course and decided to partner with Comcast, which always wanted the team to stay in South Philadelphia.

Harris told reporters the two sides started discussing the new arena in early December after NBA Commissioner Adam Silver helped bring everyone together, and that “we got the mayor involved as soon as we could.”

“We didn’t really change our mind. We were really committed to Market East … but our North Star was to do the right thing by Philly,” said Harris. “We felt we could build a better arena and also revitalize Market East … so we pivoted.”

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said Monday that NBC becoming a media partner of the NBA was “fortuitous” for the new arena deal.

What are the plans?

The new arena is considered a complement to an ambitious redevelopment plan Comcast announced in February. With help from other investors, the company hopes to spend the next decade transforming the sports complex into a year-round destination for work and play.

But for now, there are few details about the new arena itself beyond its general location. For example, it is unclear how much the facility will cost or whether the city or state will, unlike the previous arena proposal, contribute taxpayer dollars to help Comcast and the Sixers cover the cost of construction.

It is also unclear what investments will be made along the Market East corridor, the disjointed stretch that sat at the center of Parker’s argument in favor of building a Center City arena.

“We have a lot of homework and a lot of due diligence before we can get the ball rolling,” Parker said.

Parker told reporters Monday that the city will still send $20 million to Chinatown for affordable housing initiatives, a pledge that helped push the previous arena proposal over the finish line.

But the city will have to negotiate a new deal with the Sixers and Comcast, which will include a new community benefits agreement and a new PILOTs [payments in lieu of taxes] arrangement for the city and its school district. Under its previous agreement with the city, the Sixers were set to pay an average of $6 million a year in lieu of property taxes.

The Sixers and Comcast will also likely need legislative approvals from City Council before construction could start on the new arena.

“It’s gonna be rough going through this Council again because we all put ourselves out there and we believed in it. And we believed in where the money was going,” said Councilmember Jim Harrity, who supports the new deal, outside City Hall on Monday.

Opponents’ reaction

Arena opponents celebrated the Sixers agreement Sunday after various media outlets confirmed the deal with Comcast. For more than two years, activists had called the Center City proposal an existential threat to Chinatown, which sat feet from the proposed site.

Members of the Save Chinatown Coalition urged Parker and lawmakers to block the project, saying it would create a traffic nightmare that would deter people from coming to the neighborhood, hurting hundreds of small businesses in the process.

They also argued the arena would gentrify the 150-year-old community by raising property taxes beyond what existing residents could afford.

“I fully believe that if we hadn’t spent the last two years fighting tooth and nail, day in and day out, with leaders and advocates in communities from all across the city, there would be shovels in the ground already,” said Mohan Seshadri, executive director of Asian Americans United, after a Monday afternoon press conference in Chinatown.

On Sunday, lawmakers who voted against the arena proposal took the opportunity to blast the abandoned project while celebrating the team’s decision to stay in South Philadelphia.

Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said the proposal was an “enormous waste of city resources” but added she is relieved the team will remain in South Philly.

“I always thought this project was half-baked and, to me, what’s happening now is proof, not only that the project was not ready but also that the Sixers never had a commitment to us — to the citizens, to Council, to the city or anybody else,” Gauthier said.