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UndercoverPhilly t1_jdhx6pb wrote

Reply to comment by AbsentEmpire in Black clergy and businesspeople support Sixers arena proposal by dc122186

Except those that live surrounding it don't want it. I include myself in that and I live on the other side of Broad, about 10-15 minutes walk to where they propose to build this stadium. It would be much better in North Philadelphia (or keep in South Philly where it is). It would revitalize that area and bring more restaurants and businesses. It would actually be INVESTING in a part of Philadelphia that the city for the most part ignores.

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AbsentEmpire t1_jdjgiej wrote

It makes no sense in North Philly by any metric. There's no location there that's as accessible to the entire region as Market East, that has every rail line as a one seat ride, that has the highway access, the parking garages, or that has the existing entertainment service infrastructure to support it.

The only locations that make sense are Market East, the Stadium Complex, or Camden. The Sixers want a downtown transit oriented building, the bankrupt mall owners want to downsize the property, and the city wants Market East to develop more; which is why building on top of Market East Station makes perfect sense.

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Tall-Ad5755 t1_jdlfz9x wrote

Ok. And the people in packer park hate the sports comp. But it gotta go somewhere. Why not a place where density is expected.

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UndercoverPhilly t1_jdm3szt wrote

I don't think it will be built there. I can't know for sure how this will play out, but a stadium in Center City would just change the character of the downtown completely, and not in a positive way, IMO. I'm mostly familiar with MSG and that is an area I would avoid like the plague in NYC unless I had to ride transit. Lots of vagrants and cheap stores, fast food around it. (We already have that at Market East!!) But NYC is huge so go 8 blocks in each direction and the character completely changes. Philadelphia has a very small downtown from just river to river and put a behemoth like that in it and it won't be as easy to escape. But we'll see.

People complain about the area a lot but it's still better than it was in 2006/7 when I moved to Philly. I remember the first time coming out of Market East the year before moving to Philly with a friend who picked me up at the train station and being shocked at how rundown and creepy it was. (And I grew up in NYC so I know rundown and creepy). The area around the RTM and Convention Center was definitely NOT safe and I remember there being some publicized stabbings of tourists during some holiday event in the first few years that I was living in Philly. At first, I used to take the Chinatown bus (before the other buses) to commute a couple of nights between downtown Manhattan and Chinatown and I made it walking home each night around midnight but it was definitely sketchy. Sometimes the entire stretch under the Convention center street was filled with homeless sleeping on the sidewalk.

Crime, drug addicts and homelessness are the problems in the area, and until the CITY does something about that, you could put the Taj Majal there and it's still going to have repercussions.

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Tall-Ad5755 t1_je2otii wrote

There are just as many examples of it changing cities for the better.

I mean DC, has the Verizon center, the movie theater, the portrait gallery all right there which makes for a damn good setup; all on top of metro center where the two lines connect and right near Union.

Then you have LA which built a whole entertainment center at Staples.

Then you have places like Minneapolis and Denver and Detroit where all their stadiums are downtown even the large ones…and they’re the better for it.

Boston, which created an entertainment center at their arena on top of north station….for the better of that area.

Atlanta has their arenas and stadiums downtown and it would be dead if not for that. I just don’t see how Philly is some special case; I don’t see us screwing up what so many lesser places has gotten right. Only thing I would concede is yeah, our streets are pre-car tiny but the transit access is amazing and the direction we should be going. I mean from a consumer standpoint what’s better than parking at your local patco/subway/regional station and commuting in; you save a ton of money, a ton of headache, and no traffic. This will be popular if Septa gets the trains timed right. This area should be the absolute center of our entertainment district; the celebrations should be on Market not South Broad. Wit all the ads and screens and add this; and a few hotel towers ths will be a poppin area; jus gotta have the vision to do transformative things.

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