76Place开发计划可能实施，市议员斯奎拉与社区代表探讨唐人街发展方向

The developers of the proposed 76Place have been hard at work behind the scenes convincing the power brokers in City Hall to let them build their downtown arena; for the most part, it seems they have been pretty successful. In fact, they have already begun the process of drafting the legislation to do just that. Even Councilmember Mark Squilla is walking back his initial commitment to the Chinatown Community.

Squilla was clear in the December 14, 2022, community meeting on the proposed arena that he wouldn't move forward without the support of the Chinatown community, to whom he was speaking at the time.

"There will have to be some type of legislation introduced in order for the proposal to move forward. That legislation would have to be introduced by me… I made a commitment that I would share that legislation with the community ahead of time, get feedback, and only if supported by the community would that legislation be able to move forward," said Squilla at the December 14th meeting.  

Squilla received an invitation from a board member of the Philadelphia Chinatown Business Association (PCBA) and attended a meeting on August 21st on the second floor of the Asian Bank in Chinatown. In the meeting, Squilla clarified that when he said community, he meant all the potential stakeholders, not just Chinatown. Some potential stakeholders were Market East, the Center City District, SEPTA, and others moving out several blocks from the proposed site. He also made clear that he didn't even need a majority of them to agree for the project to move forward, citing the Rivers Casino project, suggesting the City would move forward with as little as twenty-five percent support if it needed to.

"I think some folks thought Chinatown was the only community stakeholder, and I think that was my fault," said Squilla about his December 14th commitment to the community.

"There is no percentage; sometimes it's 20 percent or 30 percent of the people," said Squilla. "When we did the Casino, the Rivers Casino, that was Sugar House, there were four community groups; only one signed the CBA, and that moved forward. It's just that we have to look at the picture as a whole."

"They're selling it to the insiders, movers and shakers, City Council people, and the unions; they have to get votes on City Council," said Phil Goldsmith, former Deputy Mayor, Managing Dir, and interim Philadelphia school district CEO. "The development team isn't really trying to sell this to the public."

"There are no alternative sites being considered; there is no plan B; I don't operate that way," said David Adelman in June of this year; he's maintained that position since.

Where there is some wiggle room is in the Community Benefit Agreement (CBA), but it's only enforceable by the city if it becomes a part of the legislation.

"The CBA is really between the developers and the stakeholders that sign on to the CBA," said Squilla. "If the CBA is attached to any part of the legislation, then it becomes law and is enforceable by the City."  

The developers for 76Place have said they plan to turn over ownership of the arena to the City after it has been developed, then lease the property from the City. The stadiums in South Philadelphia have a similar arrangement with the City.

"After asking questions with planning and law, I was told that was what was done with the other stadiums that were built," said Squilla when asked how the process would work. "In other words, with Citizens State Park, they built it, they turned it over to the City, Lincoln Financial Field, they built it, then turned it over to the City."

"I think the best way to enforce the CBA is to codify it and include it in the legislation; then, the City, not the organizations, would be responsible for enforcing it," said Squilla. "Then they (76ers) can never go back because the City could say, You are not abiding by the CBA, you're not going to get a CO. That would be my instinct on how to do it, but we're not there yet."

"Our goal as a city is to really look at these studies that are being done now and when they come back to see what they tell us are the impacts, instead of just listening to the development team," added Squilla. "We want to listen to what the professionals have to tell us. There are also other studies being done by Center City District and East Market's teams. We want to see if those studies are similar since they're being done by different people with different scopes so we can compare them, see what the impacts are, and if they can be mitigated."  

Activists in the Chinatown community have consistently said they don't trust the process for these studies. They suggest that having the 76ers DevCorp pay for them could influence the research and taint the findings. They point to the developers' individual histories and that of the 76ers organization in Camden, New Jersey, as sufficient reason not to trust their assertion of good faith.

"The fact is the history of Sixers development in Camden shows us what kind of neighbor 76Place would be better than any renderings ever could," said Mohan Seshadri, executive director of Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance. "They promised jobs and revitalization for Camden residents, but it turned out that was just a PR pitch that never played out. Today, the Sixers facility employs only 11 Camden residents out of 275 jobs, and they're making the same sort of jobs and tax revenue pitch here."

"We can't trust the claims of these developers, who have built their careers and fortunes on displacement and helped create the housing crisis: David Adelman makes his money gouging college students on rent in what used to be the Black Bottom, where Black families were pushed out to make way for University City," said Neeta Patel, interim executive director of Asian Americans United. Josh Harris provided the private equity funding that drove Hahnemann Hospital into the ground. David Blitzer identifies displacement opportunities for the world's largest corporate landlord, which the United Nations singled out for causing an international housing crisis and violating the human right to housing.

Squilla tried to ease those concerns during the meeting, saying, "The Sixers are paying for it, but the city of Philadelphia is the one who initiated it and controls the scope of the contract and put it out there for bid, then selected the company that would do the studies."

"Two other organizations had a seat at the table for the selection process; somebody from the project steering committee and somebody from the Anti-arena folks was there," added Squilla.

Squilla was clearly concerned with the arena's impact and other projects, such as the Vine Street Cap in Chinatown, and was willing to work to mitigate gentrification while promoting growth and cultural preservation, offering several potential ideas for how to mitigate potential tax increases, such as creating an economic opportunity zone, making Chinatown a historical zone, or creating subsidies that come from a percentage of the cost of new construction in the area.  

In the end, everything went back to the studies being done and the effects building or not building the arena would have on Chinatown and the area surrounding the arena.

He closed the meeting with promises of more discussions when the studies were finished and to make introductions between those present and the other stakeholders outside of Chinatown.

He also reminded everyone that whatever is hashed out needed to be codified into the legislation for the arena and that even though the developers wanted to have that legislation introduced in September, he didn't see it being finalized until the beginning of the next legislative session after the election in November with the new council.  

"The legislation is being worked on now; if we get a draft of it, we'll share it so that people can see it ahead of time," said Squilla. When asked if they needed to wait until the study was done, he said. "They know some of the things they need to do before an arena can go there, so they're working on those things before any hearings on the studies. They're not going to wait till all of the studies are done to start that process."

"There are going to have to be several public hearings," said Squilla. "They want it introduced by September, but I don't think it can be done until at least January."

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