PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Come 2024, City Councilmember Mark Squilla has the unenviable position of deciding whether or not to introduce legislation that would give the Sixers their new arena in his district, adjacent to Chinatown.
More than 150 residents, business owners, faith leaders and members of the community came out in force to a meeting with Squilla at Philly’s oldest Black church, Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal, on Sunday.
“Disrupt the deal! Disrupt the deal!” many chanted.
“This project has been a real, real tough road for me,” Squilla said. As the District 1 council member, he will be the one to introduce the legislation that could greenlight the project, known as 76 Place. He has not publicly supported or opposed it.
Much like the Sixers’ rebuild before Joel Embiid, Squilla tried to sell a “process.” He is awaiting the release of a city-commissioned study, funded by the developers of 76 Place, to assess the potential impact the arena would have on the surrounding community.
“The process that we’ve been following is a process that we feel that more input is being given so that a decision can be made,” he told the crowd. “People ask me: ‘Are you for or are you against the arena?’ I said that the reason why we’re doing all these studies … if I was against the arena, why are we doing all this, because I’m not going to be able to introduce the legislation. If I was for the arena, we would’ve introduced the legislation already.”
It was not what residents like Jenny Zhang wanted to hear.
“Definitely disappointed in some of his responses,” she said. “I think we’ve seen a lot of flip-flopping and shifting in stances based on the community he’s in front of.
“Listen to the community,” she said. “Listen to what we’re saying.”
The results of those studies are yet to be released.
Katy A.D., who lives in the neighborhood and works at the historic Eddie’s Tattoo shop, wasn’t buying it either.
“I was really disappointed that not only did Squilla show up late, but it seemed like he had a sort of dismissive attitude toward us throughout the meeting,” she said. “I just feel like it’s really cruel to act like they can just bulldoze over it for the arena.”