The Philadelphia 76ers will partner with Comcast Spectacor, their current owner, to build a new stadium in South Philadelphia and will abandon an agreement with the city to move downtown.
The surprising change comes as a relief to critics of the plan to build a $1.3 billion stadium near City Hall on the outskirts of Chinatown. Mayor Cherelle Parker called the proposal Monday “a win, a win, a win, a win for Philadelphia.”
“Philadelphia, this is a lot. It’s a curveball that none of us saw coming, but we’re still here,” Parker said at a noon news conference.
But some critics and City Council members felt betrayed after two years of tense negotiations over the downtown plan. Councilman Jim Harrity told a news station that he felt “completely misled.”
Parker was joined Monday by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who appeared remotely, and leaders from the team and Comcast who promised the new plan would bring vitality and a new vision to both locations. The parties also committed to working with the city to try to bring a WNBA team to Philadelphia.
“While plans have changed, the one thing that hasn’t is our commitment to doing something good for the Sixers, our fans and, most importantly, our city,” said David Adelman, partner in 76ers ownership group Harris Blitzer. Sports & Entertainment.
The City Council had voted just weeks ago to approve the team’s plan to open its proposed 76 Place downtown by 2031, despite opposition from residents of the city’s nearby Chinatown and others. The team, which shares space with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers in a stadium owned by Comcast, had said it wanted to have its own facility when its lease expired.
But the rival sides began talking two weeks ago before drawing city leaders into the high-stakes talks over the past three days.
The team, whose ownership group is led by investor Josh Harris, said it had formed a 50-50 joint venture with Comcast to replace its stadium in South Philadelphia’s stadium district by 2031. Comcast will also take a minority stake in the team and will work together on the WNBA bid, the parties said in a joint statement Monday.
And they pledged to invest in the abandoned site, Market East, a once-bustling commercial corridor in the city center that has struggled for many years despite repeated attempts to revive it.
The partners, who also own the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and have a majority stake in the NFL’s Washington Commanders, had promised not to seek any city subsidies for the center project, which they said would generate $2 billion in economic growth for Center City. They did not immediately disclose financial terms of the new project.
Chinatown activist Vivian Chang said the community was cautiously optimistic but worried that “our city was being held captive by developers” and wasting time it could have spent on other pressing issues.
“We’ve been saying all along that they were playing people,” Chang told The Associated Press. “These multi-million dollar developers didn’t have anyone’s interests in mind in terms of the community. They only had their profits in mind.”
Economist Victor Matheson, a Holy Cross professor who studies stadium financing issues, said it’s not unusual for team owners to change course as they search for the best deal. Last year in Washington, the NBA’s Wizards and the NHL’s Capitals decided to stay in the city after a deal to move to the northern Virginia suburbs, with $515 million in public financing, fell through.
“This happens all the time,” Matheson said, noting that the 76ers “played New Jersey against Philadelphia” in seeking public subsidies.
He says he believes the team planned to “get some grants along the way, and then when that didn’t happen, they ended up, of course, back where they started.”
Supporters of the downtown plan hoped a glitzy 18,500-seat stadium would be the catalyst for reviving Market East, which stretches eight blocks from City Hall to the Liberty Bell. “The way they reached this decision reflects a profound lack of respect for the city’s leaders, stakeholders and residents,” Council members Jamie Gauthier and Rue Landau said in a statement. “It was shameful that 76DevCo would pit working-class Philadelphians against each other and pressure City Hall to consider a half-baked proposal on an artificially rushed timeline.”
