NAACP Philadelphia Endorses $1.5B 76 Place Arena Plan
The Philadelphia NAACP is backing the contested 76 Place NBA arena project, the organization’s president announced Tuesday alongside team executives.
The event took place as the developers and the public await the publication of the city's studies on the potential community impact of the NBA arena proposal to move downtown beginning in 2031, when its lease at the Wells Fargo Center expires.
76 DevCo executives announced at the event that 40% of the potential arena's food and beverage would be handled by Black-owned businesses. The team would support training and employing Black workers to build the arena, executives said.
“It's really simple. Philadelphia is comprised of more than 40% Black residents, but yet these residents only own about 6% of the city's businesses. We just don't think that's good enough,” 76 DevCo Chairman David Adelman said.
The support is the first pledge of its kind by the local NAACP chapter for a professional sports arena.
“When transformative real estate projects like the 76th Place at Market East are being planned, our community cannot afford to be an afterthought,” NAACP Philadelphia President Catherine Hicks said.
Last March, 76 DevCo pledged $2M in support for the African American Chamber of Commerce, which would come out of a $50M community benefits agreement.
That large CBA is in part a response to concerns that the new arena would cause displacement and other issues for the Asian community in Chinatown, adjacent to where the arena would be built in the next decade at Market and Filbert streets.
“You cannot offer ‘community benefits’ that will pay for our history, our culture, our relationships, our home,” Steven Zhu, president of the Chinese Restaurant Association of Greater Philadelphia, said at a March event for feedback from the community on the project, according to AsAmNews.
The Save Chinatown Coalition, Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. and Center City Organized for Responsibile Development are among the local groups that have formally opposed the project over the last two years.
A design review team at the city held a meeting in April to view the updated plan for the arena’s second floor, and some commented that those plans seemed like they weren't complete. The panel also expressed concerns about the way the arena would handle the flow of traffic and other infrastructure issues. During that panel, the public offered strong opposition to the arena.
Those groups are in ongoing conversations with the 76 DevCo team, said David Gould, chief diversity and impact officer for the 76ers.
“We've made a number of offers to different groups in that community that ... have not been accepted, or people haven't wanted to really engage until the studies come out,” Gould told reporters at Tuesday's event. “And so I think once that happens, we'll be able to look at the timeline.”
The developer’s latest proposal to the city estimates that 75% of fans will exit the arena and spill into Chinatown within 15 minutes after the game.
“You need foot traffic in order to sustain business, and I feel like this will give them that opportunity,” Hicks said. “When different organizations come to the convention center or here for shows, not everyone's going to want something from concession stands. So I feel the Asian community in Chinatown will benefit as well. That's how I see it. We have to look out for the city as a whole.”
The Community Builds program started in part by Gould would be “the main vehicle” for training and getting underserved people into jobs related to the arena project, Gould told Bisnow.
He didn't outline how many jobs would go to Black workers.
Similar promises were made when the team built a practice facility in Camden, New Jersey, in 2016. Despite a pledge that the new facility would boost local jobs, only 11 of several hundred hires were from that city. Moving the facility across the Delaware River led to a local tax break of $82M over a decade in return for generating 250 jobs at the site.
