Sixers Ditch Downtown Dreams, Partnering on South Philly Arena

The 76ers’ planned arena in downtown Philadelphia is no more. 

Less than four weeks after the city council there approved the NBA team’s long-controversial arena and mixed-use development, 76 Place at Market East, the franchise has dramatically pivoted—instead striking a large-scale deal with Wells Fargo Center owner Comcast Spectacor to stay in the South Philadelphia sports complex, Front Office Sports has confirmed.

The far-reaching deal, quickly coming together over the recent holidays, contains at least three major components:

• The 76ers and Comcast Spectacor will enter a 50-50 partnership for the development and ownership of a new arena in the existing sports complex. Comcast Spectacor had long offered this deal during downtown arena deliberations that roiled the city for several years, but until now, the 76ers had resisted it. In the current Wells Fargo Center lease, the 76ers are a tenant and have a less robust financial presence there.
• Joint pursuit of a WNBA expansion franchise.
• A separate, non-sports development to be built at the 76 Place at Market East site, near Philadelphia’s Chinatown.

None of the principals involved in the deal commented on Sunday, but a formal announcement is expected Monday. Throughout the 76ers’ deliberations of the proposed downtown, $1.55 billion arena, opposition has been fierce—even with a private financing plan and particularly within the neighboring Chinatown neighborhood fearful of potential gentrification and the forcing out of incumbent ethnic communities.

“The Sixers staying in south Philadelphia has always made the most sense,” Philadelphia city council members Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke said on Instagram. “Let’s see the details, but this is a historic win and testament to the power of organizing—it helps to trust and believe in that power.”

Still, others on the council who supported the now-abandoned arena effort were far from happy that they had spent so much effort and political capital on it.

“I’m so livid right now I don’t even know what to do,” Jimmy Harrity, another city council member, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The 76ers will remain just one of two NBA teams to not play in a downtown arena; the Spurs are the other, and there are ongoing conversations in San Antonio about a potential facility project there. The South Philadelphia sports complex remains one of the most unique clusters of major sports facilities in the country, bringing together the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park, Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field, and Wells Fargo Center in a joint site that includes shared parking and easy access to major roadways, the Walt Whitman Bridge, and public transportation.