Many fans of the Philadelphia 76ers know the feeling: catching a great game, only to be stuck in traffic for hours trying to get out of the stadium complex in South Philadelphia. But recently, there’s been an alternative and a debate on the minds of Philadelphians, planners, and fans from around the region. What if we moved the Sixers’ arena to Center City? The team’s current arena, the Wells Fargo Center, is surrounded by an unpleasant sea of massive parking lots in the Sports Complex. This almost guarantees that most people coming to the game will be driving, creating long traffic jams, pumping carbon emissions into the air, and making the atmosphere around the stadium bleak and uninviting. After a big game, the last thing you want is for fans to retreat back to their personal vehicles, drive home, and not be able to celebrate together or take in the city around them. An arena located right on Market Street in the middle of the city would create the opportunity for a much more lively atmosphere before, during, and after games. And the benefits wouldn’t just be for fans—a downtown arena would create a much livelier Center City.
But the Sixers’ proposal hasn’t come without opposition. Philadelphia’s vibrant and authentic Chinatown is located just northeast of where the arena would be located, and many residents and businesses aren’t happy. Their objections are understandable—Chinatown has been deeply hurt in the past by major projects, most notably the building of Interstate 676, which cut the neighborhood in half when it was built throughout the late twentieth century. Chinatown’s business owners and residents are worried that the traffic situation around the arena would create gridlock and cause people to stay away from their neighborhood and that people would shop and eat inside the arena instead of at local businesses. These are very real concerns; however, these can be solved if the right thoughts and design go into the project. Less parking around the arena wouldn’t just benefit Chinatown— it would benefit everyone. Traffic and too many cars are a major problem in the current arena, and that’s the last thing we should want to spread to the rest of Center City. The whole appeal of putting an arena right on Market Street is that it would be located directly above Jefferson Station, which serves numerous SEPTA subways and Regional Rail lines and makes it possible to get to almost anywhere in the region. The benefits of this are pretty obvious: if more people take the train to the game, there’s less traffic, less pollution, and fewer cars clogging Center City’s streets. It also opens up a whole new world of possibilities for what the area around the arena could look like. Currently, fans just stream back to their cars after a game at the Wells Fargo Center because there aren’t really any restaurants, shops, or places for them to go nearby. But a downtown arena is different. Fans leaving the game would find themselves in the middle of all that Center City and Chinatown have to offer.
A new Center City venue for the Sixers could be a great asset for the city, region, neighborhood, and fans but only if some boxes are checked first. The stadium developers need to work with SEPTA to figure out a comprehensive plan for more frequent and convenient service on its rail lines because allowing thousands of fans to drive and park in Center City will clog up streets, cut off access to Chinatown, and make life more unpleasant for everyone. There also needs to be a promise to Chinatown and its residents and businesses that they won’t be harmed at all in the construction or function of the arena, and this promise has to be kept. The arena has the potential to greatly benefit Chinatown, but if it tears apart the already-shrunken neighborhood, it will be a complete failure and something we’ll regret. If we can’t accomplish that, it’ll be an embarrassment, but if we can, then Philadelphia will have a new basketball arena and a renewed section of Center City that we can be proud of.