Philly City Council postpones vote on the proposed 76ers arena as negotiations continue

Philadelphia City Council leadership postponed an initial vote on whether to approve the proposed 76ers arena in Center City, moving a scheduled Thursday meeting to next week as negotiations over the controversial project continue.

Council President Kenyatta Johnson announced late Wednesday that a committee vote is now scheduled for next Wednesday, Dec. 11. The delay in the meeting of Council’s Committee of the Whole, which needs to grant initial approval to the project before it can be voted on by the full Council, gives lawmakers an additional six days to negotiate a deal with the team and with one another.

“It’s a work in progress,” Johnson told reporters Thursday. “How these discussions are progressing or not progressing will determine if we wrap this up by the end of the year or not, to be quite frank.”

The delay means a final vote on the legislative package green-lighting the $1.3 billion project likely couldn’t happen until Dec. 19 under Council’s normal rules, which require bills to be read in the Council meeting a week before a final vote. Council was originally set to adjourn for the year on Dec. 12, but Johnson has said an added session will be necessary to pass the arena legislation.

Because the Committee of the Whole is composed of all 17 Council members, the initial vote scheduled for next week would be a reliable indicator of the arena legislation’s fate.

“That’s the next opportunity to see if we have anything that we could put up for a vote,” said Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents the area where the arena would be built.

Council leaders have said they are working to reach a deal on the proposed arena by the end of the year. The Sixers have said they need legislative approval this year to keep to their construction timeline and open a new arena by 2031, when their current lease at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia expires.

The Sixers have been in negotiations with members of Council for months, and those talks intensified over the last several weeks through a series of public hearings about the project, which the team wants to construct near 10th and Market Streets.

Lawmakers were negotiating this week with the Sixers over the $50 million community benefits agreement that the team negotiated with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration. Most Council members, including those who generally support the project, have said the Sixers should contribute more money to the CBA, and team representatives said publicly for the first time this week that they are open to paying more.

“That’s something that has been a constant message we’ve heard from members,” Squilla said Thursday. “What that number is above that, we don’t know. But that is something that we have to continue negotiating with.”

» READ MORE: The 76ers indicate they may give more than $50 million for the arena proposal’s community benefits agreement

Squilla said Tuesday that the 76ers would need to contribute at least $10 million more if the project is to move forward.

Opponents of the arena say even that is woefully inadequate. A coalition of groups that oppose the project in large part because of its expected impact on nearby Chinatown said Wednesday that a $300 million CBA should be the “minimum.” City Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., who has said he opposes the project, floated the same number earlier this week.

The Rev. Robin Hynicka, of the group Center City Organized for Responsible Development, said during a news conference Wednesday outside City Hall that the current community benefits agreement “is a misnomer.”

“It’s a corporate benefits agreement,” Hynicka said. “We are asking City Council to stop this ill-conceived project, which is based on a limited imagination of a few wealthy individuals.”

Parker, who supports the arena project and has been holding community meetings across the city to tout the proposal, said during an unrelated news conference Wednesday that she’s optimistic it will get across the finish line.

“It ain’t over until it’s over,” she said. “So I’m going to keep eternally grateful and hopeful and optimistic throughout all of it, but Council has a right to do its due diligence.”