Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Friday, January 17, 2025

Fool me once, fool me twice: Mayor Bowser has it all wrong about the Washington Commanders football team

Josh Harris is the managing partner for both the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and the Washington Commanders football team.  

For more than a year, the basketball team has been angling to move to Market East, on top of a SEPTA station, more in the center of Downtown, rather than their current South Philly location.

In late December, the Philadelphia City Council approved the deal ("City Council gives final approval to the 76ers’ Center City arena proposal," Philadelphia Inquirer, "A billion-dollar saga: How the Sixers arena proposal went from a done deal to a stunning reversal,"  WHYY/NPR

This week, the 76ers announced they'd be staying in South Philly after all ("The 76ers have struck a deal with Comcast Spectacor to stay in South Philly and abandon plans for a Center City arena," PI).

After the Sixers announced their desire to leave South Philadelphia, Comcast Spectacor began aggressively courting them to stay in the stadium district. As part of their campaign, they revealed an ambitious and sprawling proposal for a $2.5 billion complete redevelopment of the area that would add thousands of apartments, restaurants, and more entertainment options.

That led to a clash between the 76ers’ billionaire owners — Josh Harris, David Blitzer, and David Adelman — and Brian L. Roberts, the chairman and CEO of Comcast, which owns Spectacor. Publicly, Adelman feuded with Daniel J. Hilferty, the president and CEO of Comcast Spectacor, a subsidiary of the cable and internet giant.

... “We were a negotiation ploy for these people who promised a big bag of goods that were going to help the city,” said Harrity. “They’re taking money from our kids.”

And it turns out, all along they've been negotiating with the City of Camden, NJ too ("A Sixers move to Camden lurked until the new South Philly arena deal was struck, as more details emerge," PI).

The sides feuded for two years over the Sixers’ planned move from the Wells Fargo Center, where they are a tenant of Comcast through 2031. The main reason the Sixers wanted a new arena is because they don’t make much money from the WFC, and a new arena that they owned outright eventually would allow them to print their own money.

So, why the compromise? Because the sides already are business partners; because the Sixers would make more money with less investment quicker; because Comcast feared competition; and because the city was paranoid that the Sixers would move to Camden.

... Why was the city desperate to appease the Sixers’ pivot? After all, Parker, the previous administration, and several Councilmembers spent years on political maneuvers and battles with constituents to get the downtown site approved. The city was desperate because even after the downtown arena deal passed Council, the Sixers, according to a source familiar with the arena deal, kept negotiating with Camden, where they have a practice facility.

This was surprising because, during the process of getting approval, the team and city implied that downtown arena approval would render a move to Camden moot. That implication was a diversion, according to the source; Camden “always” remained on the table. New Jersey was prepared to offer around $800 million in tax credits to lure the Sixers to the waterfront area near the existing practice facility.

This is a sports team owner that Mayor Bowser says is all in on DC ("D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser anticipates Commanders stadium deal will happen ‘soon’," ).

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said this week she expects a stadium deal with the Washington Commanders for the RFK Stadium campus to take shape “soon.”

A stadium deal could come together “in a lot of ways,” Bowser said Monday, and she believes the D.C. Council would be “positive” about bringing the NFL team back to the RFK Stadium campus, where it played when it won its three Super Bowl titles.

... Bowser said she didn’t think the change in plans from the Sixers would affect Harris’ efforts for a new Commanders stadium. “But if I'm Josh Harris, I probably have more time and money to spend on RFK,” she said.

These people aren't your friends.  They make deals, they sign contracts, they aren't focused on both sides benefiting, but maximizing their benefit.

Bowser claims that a football stadium--nationally such stadiums are used fewer than 30 days per year--is necessary to jump start redevelopment of the RFK campus.

While the jury is out on the success of related sports and entertainment districts next to baseball stadiums and hockey and basketball arenas, the reality is that these real estate plays are working with a lot more event days ("Follow up: arenas and stadiums as "performing arts centers" attractions for cities: experience versus retail").  Also see "United Center owners snap up nearby lots as Near West Side megaproject takes shape," Crain's Chicago Business.

(The Chicago proposal includes a separate 6,000 seat music venue, a park, more than 9,000 residential units, and almost 2,000 hotel rooms.)

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Ironically, I am reminded that in 2003 when I was on the board of the H Street Main Street commercial district revitalization effort, when the city was pushing for residential in-migration, and held a "City Living Expo" for people to come into the city and talk with representatives from various neighborhoods, that I proposed defining an organizational interest area beyond the specific boundaries of the HSMS program.

This was to encourage residential development, to strengthen the commercial district.  The three areas I named were (1) RFK campus, for housing; (2) a redevelopment of Hechinger Mall; and (3) Bladensburg Road.

Recently, Events DC, controller of the RFK campus, considered the possibility of a new basketball and hockey arena on the site.  I wrote about it in "Capital One Arena, Wizards and Capitals may move to Alexandria | Why not the RFK campus?."

In any case, redevelopment of the RFK campus should be tied into developing a new economic development program for East of the Anacostia River.  Which likely isn't in the cards.  This is discussed at great length in the above-citied post.

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As "Framework of characteristics that support successful community development in association with the development of professional sports facilities," makes clear, mostly these are done deals despite opposition.  The key is to maximize the benefit for the city as much as possible, and to mitigate the negatives.

Bowser's belief that the team will come up with $2 Billion for the stadium, and put the City on the hook only for infrastructure improvements, is likely a long shot.  Unless the team is given all of the development rights for build out on the RFK campus.

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7 Comments:

At 3:37 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/market-east-development-without-76ers-20250117.html

Market East doesn’t need the Sixers arena to make a comeback
With the right kind of planning, the east side of Center City could turn itself into a modern, mixed-use neighborhood.

What will save Market Street is many small, incremental things. It takes a lot more work and coordination to implement discrete measures. And for that, you need a master plan, overseen by the city’s planning staff, not outsourced to a trio of high-flying billionaires focused on their own interests.

The last time Philadelphia planners took a serious look at Market Street was in 2009, right after City Council approved a casino for what was still called the Gallery. While that proposal died the death it deserved, the plan laid the groundwork for the East Market development, which used existing buildings and streets as a basis for reinventing the block between 11th and 12th Streets. That project remains a model for how to do large-scale, mixed-use redevelopment in a city with a colonial-era street grid and a wealth of historic buildings.

If Philadelphia was less in thrall to big-money players, the Parker administration would have undertaken a similar planning exercise before it handed Market East over to the Sixers. Yes, the city did issue several impact studies. But those assemblages of data were not plans, and the findings were promptly ignored anyway. The Center City District and Comcast Spectacor came up with ideas that looked a little more like plans. But not one of those studies grappled with the kind of concrete legislative, budgetary, or zoning actions necessary to get from A to B and initiate a true transformation.

The Parker administration has been telling us for months that it will eventually get around to doing a master plan for Market Street. With the impending loss of Macy’s as a major presence on the corridor, there’s no time to waste.

Philadelphia needs to think bigger
But let’s not limit the exercise to Market Street. We’ve been too fixated on the problems of this one retail street and the fate of its two behemoths, the Fashion District and the former Wanamaker Building. The entire east side of Center City urgently needs an intervention.

 
At 3:38 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

The east side is a distinct neighborhood with a common history. The area — Chestnut to Market, from Sixth to Broad — emerged as the city’s main office and retail destination after the Civil War. With the completion of City Hall in 1901, those streets went into a slow decline as shops and wealth shifted to the west side. The 2020 pandemic, and the retail apocalypse that followed, further diminished commerce that remained on the east side of Broad.

Today, at least half a dozen enormous legacy buildings on the east side are struggling with vacancy. That includes the ground floors of Lit Bros., Strawbridge’s, the Public Ledger building, the Blum Store, and the grand Ninth Street post office, plus the perennially blighted Cunningham Piano building. I recently counted 30 vacant storefronts on Chestnut Street alone. Wanamakers has almost as much office space as Liberty Place, most of it empty.

The district has what urban planners call “assets.” The area offers the best transit connections in the region and should get better with the reopening of PATCO’s Franklin Square station later this year. With its movie theater, bowling alley, and two-story Primark, the westernmost block of the Fashion District is still a big draw. Chinatown, which is right next door, often feels as busy as Walnut Street.

The area has also seen an influx of experiential attractions expected to open soon. In the last few months, paintball courses, Formula 1 simulators, arcade games, and indoor bounce houses for kids have burrowed into the spaces once occupied by clothing and furniture retailers. There are nights when Chestnut Street is awash in twentysomethings. Thanks to all those enormous store lots, the east side has a future as an entertainment district.

Because the area was Philadelphia’s original office district, it also retains an astonishing number of ornate, early skyscrapers, the kind that give Chicago and New York their reputation for architectural innovation. Although some of these towers have already been turned into apartments, plenty of others, like the 1894 Watkins building (a.k.a. Society Hill Furniture), appear to be languishing.

Unlike the big department stores, which have immense floor plates, these slim, historic towers are easier to convert to residential use. Adding more apartments and increasing the neighborhood’s population density would provide more customers for local shops and make the area feel safer. Janice Woodcock, who ran the planning department for the Street administration, says city leaders should revive the strategies developed in the 1990s and outlined in an influential report titled “Turning on the Lights Upstairs.”

https://centercityphila.org/uploads/attachments/citfvqre100if0wqd8vi0qyy2-ccdlights-upstairs.pdf

 
At 3:38 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...


The east side needs a plan and a leader
These improvements won’t just happen on their own, of course. Both the old towers and the big department stores have structural challenges that increase construction costs. Very likely, the Wanamaker Building’s owners will have to core out portions of the building’s floors to create light wells for apartments. Meanwhile, small buildings, like Society Hill Furniture, don’t yield enough units to make conversions worth the effort. Chestnut Street is lined with such modest, mid-rise buildings.

Because it will take extra creativity to reuse the east side’s legacy buildings, the city needs to create an organizing entity to lobby for the neighborhood. Not exactly a special services district, since the Center City District already covers the area and provides cleaning and security. But the east side requires a dedicated curator of some kind to make sure the city doesn’t lose interest. The district should include the Roundhouse block, between Race and Arch, much of which was leveled as part of urban renewal in 1963.

An east side curator would start by identifying tax incentives to offset high construction costs. Mark Merlini, who was part of the team at Brickstone Realty that saved the Lits Building from demolition in the late 1980s, would like to see a residential version of the state’s Keystone Opportunity Zone.

The creation of a KOZ is what enabled the massive development now taking place at Schuylkill Yards, but it is intended only for new construction. Gov. Josh Shapiro, however, just created a special fund to revive historic commercial areas in downtown Pittsburgh. Why not a similar fund for Philadelphia’s east side? The city could also do its part by offering a special 10-year tax abatement for new residential construction in the district (instead of the five-year version available citywide).

An east side curator wouldn’t just act as a lobbyist for developers. That person could work with Jefferson Health to repopulate the empty retail in its Chestnut Street buildings and could help the owners of the big department stores create a Center City version of the Bok building’s creative incubator. A curator might even be able to persuade film companies to build studios in the large spaces.

It was odd to hear the mayor speak recently about restoring Market Street as a place for high-end retail. Neither Market nor Chestnut Street is likely to be a retail destination again. For better or worse, online shopping is here to stay, and downtown shopping districts will continue to shrink. The best Market Street can expect is mixed-use towers that include some retail space on the ground floor.

For many residential developers, Market Street is a hard sell. It’s not just the existence of so many blighted properties between Ninth and 10th (which have the same owner as the Fashion District). The street still feels like a commercial place. But a curator could use temporary strategies, like pop-ups and outdoor concerts, to help domesticate the street.

Imagine a lush, outdoor beer garden like the one the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society runs on South Street. For years, the Free Library has been trying to find bigger quarters for its Independence branch at Seventh and Market, which serves Chinatown and Washington Square West. Putting the library in a street-facing space at the Fashion District would give residents from the surrounding area another reason to come to Market Street.

 
At 8:25 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.inquirer.com/news/chinatown-sixers-arena-philly-year-of-the-snake-20250119.html

A weary Chinatown faces the future as Sixers arena plan fails: Every few years a new fight for survival
Chinatown routinely confronts the prospect of huge, imposing developments — a prison, a casino, a Phillies baseball stadium — that demands the neighborhood expend time, money and energy.

 
At 5:59 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/market-east-future-plan-sixers-arena-development-20250119.html

What should we do with Market East? 12 Philadelphians weigh in

- Create a ‘Welcoming District’ for immigrants
- No more soulless megaprojects
- Bring festivals, markets, and smart kiosks to Market East
- The era of rigidly zoned downtowns is behind us
- Growth doesn’t have to come at the expense of our values
- Go back to William Penn’s groundbreaking 1682 plan for Philadelphia
- Look to Chinatown’s rich history and create spaces for youth
- Build a new central transportation center
- Prioritize people
- Create a new hub for innovation and growth
- We need trees, bike lanes, and a great public plaza
- Make Market East a cosmopolitan canopy

 
At 9:19 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

The uncertain future of Market East
Almost a million square feet of retail space was tied to the Sixers’ arena plan. What happens next?

https://www.inquirer.com/news/inq2/market-east-sixers-arena-fashion-district-retail-vacancy-20250120.html

 
At 3:31 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

BBQ joints key to a real Chinatown.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/this-toronto-restaurant-keeps-dying-art-of-chinese-barbecue-alive/article_7c574ee4-b340-11ef-8366-7fa68d432222.html

 

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