WNBA Team May Join Sixers At New 76 Place Arena: New Details Released

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Sixers hope to bring a WNBA team to Philadelphia to join them in their new home at 76 Place in Center City, Mayor Cherelle Parker confirmed during a public town hall this week that outlined deeper details on one of the most transformative and controversial projects in the city's recent history.

Parker's conference was also an impassioned defense of the project, which she touted as beneficial to the entire city for creating jobs, generating some $700 million in new tax revenues for the city and school district, and bringing "vibrancy" back to a neglected stretch of Market Street.

The public statement that both the city and the Sixers franchise are on board with petitioning the WNBA to bring a team to Philadelphia, however, was perhaps the most noteworthy new development.

"We have been working for a very long time to put together the potential for Philadelphia to see a team one day," Parker said Wednesday. "I want us to keep working extremely hard, as hard as we can...I will tell you, with this new Sixers arena there, there is no one that could tell me that Philadelphia has not just upped its position in trying to pursue a WNBA team."

Related: Joel Embiid Signs 3-Year, $192 Million Contract Extension With Sixers

Parker's comments on the matter were greeted with an uproar of applause from the gathered crowd at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Patch has reached out to the WNBA for comment. The league has not publicly spoken on developments in Philadelphia recently, though the city has long been considered to be among the frontrunners. The league has expressed desire to add one more franchise in the near future, after announcing Portland as the newest team just earlier this month.

See also: Inside The New Sixers, Historic, Controversial Move To Center City

"Philly is the largest city in the country without a WNBA team...we need to make it happen soon," Philadelphia Councilman Isaiah Thomas said.

Parker's conference also revealed more of the long term vision for the arena. The contract between the Sixers and the city would keep the team at 76 Place through at least 2061. The Sixers are financing the entire $1.3 billion cost of the arena themselves, and no taxpayer funds will be used on the project.

Parker pushed back on criticisms of gentrification and damage to the adjacent Chinatown neighborhood and historic districts. The arena will be located on 10th and 11th streets where they intersect with Market and Filbert streets. It will replace a section of the Fashion District of Philadelphia. None of that is technically "Chinatown," as Parker noted repeatedly Wednesday, and no buildings in Chinatown itself will be demolished.

Still, detractors point to the cultural changes that massive construction would bring, and the likelihood that property values would change and could push out small businesses and residents. There's also concern about traffic. Parker, and the city, think it's worth it not just to bring the Sixers into an iconic part of Center City, but also for the jobs, tax revenue, and improvements along a stretch of Market Street that has fallen into disrepair.

"I remember the Market Street of old," Parker said. "I remember working at Dunkin Donuts...I remember when you earned enough that you could go shopping at Wannamaker...or get a hot dog in Woolworth's...it represented a certain amount of quality. And quite frankly, if we want to get that now, we gotta go to that K, O, whatever that place is called."

The new arena is slated to open in time for the 2031 NBA — and perhaps WNBA — season.

To finalize the agreement and actually begin construction, Philadelphia's city council must still pass legislation this fall to approve the project. Parker has directed the council to pass it, and council members have expressed overwhelming public support.

The first meeting to address these bills will take place on Oct. 24.

By it's time for them to move into their new home, the Sixers will have been in the south Philadelphia sports complex for 62 years, having spent the last 27 years at the Wells Fargo Center, from 1997 to the present, and the 28 years before that in the old Spectrum.

The Flyers, who have shared an arena with the Sixers during all that time but whose relationship has soured as the Sixers explored an independent home, will remain at Wells Fargo.

While various proposals have existed over the years to bring other teams to Center City, or even just out of the south Philadelphia sports complex, none ever came close to materializing until this latest push by the Sixers. The closest came perhaps in the leadup to the Phillies transition from Veterans Stadium to Citizens Bank Park, which was completed in 2004, when the Phils considered a slew of sites downtown, including at Broad and Spring Garden streets and also in Chinatown.