April 03, 2024
Source/76DevCo
The 76ers' arena proposal went before Philadelphia's Civic Design Review committee for a second time Tuesday. The panel's feedback stressed that it falls short of what the East Market Street corridor needs to be revitalized for the long haul.
The 76ers arena development team spent hours Tuesday listening to feedback from design experts and community members about its proposal to build a new home on East Market Street.
The consensus on the team's $1.55 billion plan?
"This is a little undercooked," said Daniel Garofolo, a member of the city's Civic Design Review committee and senior adviser at eConsult Solutions Inc. "Either there wasn't enough time dedicated to it or it's just not presented in a way that's clear."
The CDR meeting was the second and final evaluation for the team's arena plan, which the Sixers revised after receiving critical feedback during an initial meeting in December. The CDR panel offers a public forum to discuss major building proposals, analyze their potential impacts and make recommendations to developers on how to improve their plans. The panel's role is advisory only, but the assessments help gauge whether developers are aligned with the city's goals for land-use and community development.
Amid testimony on everything from traffic concerns to the risk of birds colliding with the arena's glass facade, here are three major takeaways from Tuesday's meeting.
One of the biggest questions facing the arena is whether the site will be a public destination on days when there are no Sixers games or other events. The team anticipates the building will be in use up to 200 days per year once it's completed. On the other days, the arena will need to attract visitors with retail stores, dining options and community events. The Sixers seek to open the arena in 2031, when their lease ends at the Wells Fargo Center.
"We have to get that first floor to be an absolute world-class destination that people are going to want to come to," Garofolo said, adding that the plan lacks vibrancy that connects the arena to the surrounding neighborhood.
The Sixers envision the arena's first floor will be a busy hub and access point for SEPTA riders, because the building will sit atop Jefferson Station between 10th and 11th streets. The plan includes a ground-level promenade that leads to a public gathering space, but the panel said its function lacks a clear purpose and "peters out" before leading to a memorable vantage point. The CDR members argued the proposal still doesn't meet the goal of connecting the arena's ground floor to the neighborhoods around it.
"I'm not seeing it yet. If this is going to come to this area, I want to see it," said committee member Tavis Dockweiler, founder of Viridian Landscape Studio. "I want to see it vibrant and connected to the neighborhoods."
Garofolo said the promenade should better serve as a gateway to Chinatown. He suggested it be outfitted with amenities that make it a public beacon, whether that's more shopping options or features similar to those that uplift other landmark buildings — like the Comcast Center lobby's display screen or the Wanamaker building's grand court organ at Macy's. The removal of the existing AMC movie theater and Round1 bowling venue at the Fashion District would take away amenities that don't have clear replacements.
In its current form, the first floor is "substandard" and "second-rate," the committee said.
"If this is going to go forward, that ground floor needs to knock your socks off," the panel wrote in a series of notes on the project. "It needs to revitalize the corridor as a joyous delightful element of the city of Philadelphia."
Alex Kafenbaum, who leads development for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the firm that owns the 76ers and other pro sports teams, said the plan is still being refined. The extended timeline for the arena offers the team a long runway to make improvements, he said, but it also hampers the project's presentation at this stage.
"From the get-go, we've said this is the first-pass at where we're all at. It's not a building permit submission. We have not really started the design process that typically happens for a building," Kafenbaum said.
The Sixers' master plan includes a traffic impact study that analyzes how the arena will affect congestion on Market Street and surrounding roads. The team claims added demand created by the arena will equal only 1% of the existing traffic in Center City. This can be mitigated by more fans using public transit and motorists relying on existing parking lots that are dispersed in the blocks surrounding the arena, the Sixers say.
Many of the team's traffic insights are driven by real-time data from devices in vehicles and other technology that transmits travel information about cars coming in and out of Center City. The committee said the team hasn't done enough to spell out proof that the area can handle the influx of cars.
"The traffic diagrams that were shown left me befuddled," Garofolo said. "I came out of that not understanding anything better about what an arena would do downtown with traffic."
CDR members, community organizations and other public commenters argued that the 76ers have relied too heavily on comparisons to other arenas — like Boston's TD Garden and Brooklyn's Barclays Center — to downplay Philadelphia's traffic concerns. Critics say these are "false equivalencies" that discount the lack of multiple thoroughfares to alleviate traffic congestion created by the arena, particularly when people are leaving events.
Others worried that it's not safe to assume SEPTA and PATCO will be able to handle surges of riders around event times. But the Sixers said traffic is the most common complaint they hear about the Sports Complex in South Philly. SEPTA already handles much larger ridership from the Sports Complex, where multiple events coincide and attendance is greater for Eagles and Phillies games.
"(SEPTA and PATCO) have no concerns whatsoever about being able to absorb the riders that we're talking about," Kafenbaum said.
From an aesthetic standpoint, Dockweiler said the team's streetscape plans would be "fine," but the proposal doesn't do enough to portray scenery that would make the site a compelling signature on Market Street.
Without more visual definition and clearer data, the proposal makes the arena's viability in Center City an article of faith in the team's analysis, said John Chin, who leads the nonprofit Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. He shared his concern that cars and pedestrians will be interfering with one another.
"There's not enough data that they won't be competing for the same space when coming to and leaving the arena," he said.
A recurring theme of the meeting was the importance of not repeating the failures learned from the construction of the Gallery mall in the 1970s. Its three blocks were overhauled into the Fashion District just before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We don't want to make the same mistake," said Michael Johns, chair of the CDR committee and principal of Mdesigns + MWJ Consulting LLC.
The committee expressed concerns that the arena will create another "superblock" on Market Street that becomes monolithic instead of drawing people to the area. The team's proposal to close Filbert Street would further create this effect, panel members said.
"We now know better," said committee member Ashley DiCaro, of Interface Studio. "I don't think it's appropriate for us as a city to say, 'The mall is dying, so we have to accept this.'"
Although the committee praised the concept of the team's 395-unit residential tower, some members said this portion of the proposal lacks sufficient details. Dockweiler argued the building's orientation should be shifted to offer residents better views of the city.
Panel members also acknowledged that the 76ers' pledge to privately finance the project — including infrastructure modifications that will be needed around the arena site — represents "a serious amount of money being invested" in an area that needs revitalization. But they also lamented that the team's $50 million community benefits agreement — a figure the 76ers have called historic — amounts to less than the average annual value of Sixers star Joel Embiid's four-year, $213 million contract.
"We need to try to make this proposal as good as it can be," the committee said.
The city has not released the impact studies it commissioned on the 76ers arena proposal, a key step that's necessary to vet the team's analyses and financial projections.
At the CDR meeting, city officials said they still don't have a timeline for those studies to be published.
"The deadline keeps getting pushed because they're very complicated studies and issues," said Martine Decamp, interim executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. "We're working on final drafts at this moment."
Decamp said those studies need to be translated before they are released, likely adding several weeks to the timeline.
City Councilmember Mark Squilla, whose district covers the arena site, attended the meeting but did not comment on the proceedings. His office does not plan to advance legislation on the arena until the after the impact studies are out and the surrounding communities have been given a draft of the bill with 30 days notice.
Johns, the committee chairman, concluded the meeting with words of praise for the Sixers' openness to receiving critical feedback.
"We appreciate the development team's commitment to this process and their desire to hear and learn from the community and the other stakeholders to improve what could be a really great project for the city of Philadelphia," he said.
