But all is not well in Philadelphia’s Chinatown District
The owners of the National Basketball Association’s Philadelphia 76ers franchise scored a huge win, probably the biggest win in the business’s Philadelphia history which dates back to May 22nd, 1963. On that date, the Syracuse Nationals franchise was sold by Danny Biasone to Philadelphia businessmen Irv Kosloff and Ike Richman. The two took the team to Philadelphia and the business has been someone’s tenant since then. The Philadelphia City Council has approved a plan to build an arena-village complete with a sports venue, residential and retail space. The 76ers ownership claims it will be responsible for all costs with the usual no-taxpayers money will go to the project which is not true. There always are public dollars that go into these projects. The Philadelphia 76ers ownership will not be paying property taxes on the parcel, instead the ownership will pay a lump sum of money to both the city and local school district through a law called payment in lieu of taxes or a PILOT. What that means is the builder, the 76ers owners in this case, will pay far less than the property’s assessed tax rate. Philadelphia taxpayers will be paying $20 million for an affordable housing project in the area. The area though is a problem.
The planned arena-village will be built near the Chinatown portion of Philadelphia and local residents are not happy. They are afraid that the arena and the village aspect of the plan will destroy their quality of life which would include gentrification and traffic problems. There could be lawsuits filed by local groups and that could cause delays to the project that is supposed to be completed by 2031. With the approval, 76ers ownership now has the ability to control arena revenues, something that the business has not been able to do in its 63 years of existence.
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