Weekly Digest: A Switcheroo in Philly, Drilling Down on Affordable Housing Numbers
Are arena negotiations just about leverage? Also, low-income rents (and qualifying incomes) in Brooklyn have risen. The Brooklyn Nets go promotional.
This digest offers a way to keep up with my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog, as well as my other coverage in this newsletter and elsewhere.
I’ve kept watch on the arena drama in Philadelphia for well more than a year, because the NBA Philadelphia 76ers’ attempt to move to a more profitable new downtown arena, dubbed 76Place, has periodically invoked the Barclays Center project in Brooklyn.
(Yes, a new emphasis on public transit was touted in Philly, but building directly over an actual train station and nudging up to a vulnerable Chinatown would not be commonalities.)
So it was shocking and strange that, a month after the 76ers, after a major lobbying campaign and various public promises, had won City Council approval for the site, setting the stage for a modern arena that could best the existing Wells Fargo Center (with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers), the NBA team said: never mind.
They’d agreed with the Flyers and owner Comcast go halfsies on a new arena at the current South Philadelphia sports complex, replacing the recently renovated Wells Fargo Center. Comcast will now own a piece of the 76ers.
So it was obvious, and chagrining to people involved in the public discourse, that a significant of City Council time, money, and discussion space had been devoted to what resulted in a negotiating ploy, giving the NBA team leverage for a better deal with Comcast.
As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes explained, “while the new arena deal likely will mean that the Sixers will profit far less in the long term, they will assume far less risk and far less outlay.” It’s math.
Two arenas
It later emerged, according to the Inquirer, that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver thought two arenas would be bad for the city. Also, with Comcast a media partner with the NBA, he had leverage.
Well, duh.
As I wrote in September, consultant CSL, which has a record of unsustainably sunny financial projections for arenas like the Barclays Center, unsurprisingly concluded—to praise from 76Place backers—that Philly could support two financially viable arenas, thus generating more spending, jobs, and tax revenue. That required them to ignore the record in the New York area.
Another factor: the 76ers were apparently still considering a potential move across the state line to Camden, where New Jersey was dangling tax credits. (So much for that new emphasis on public transit.)
And another: while Gov. Josh Shapiro had ruled out state funds for the proposed downtown arena, he said he was still open to assisting the new arena at the South Philly sports complex.
Well, why aid private businesses run by billionaires? As Inquirer columnist Stephanie Farr put it, “Billionaires may shape Philly’s landscape, but they do not define our character.”
From this newsletter
Jan. 15: How Many Apartments Were Rented to Households Earning Under $50,000? Well, far more than suggested in an otherwise useful table from BrooklynSpeaks. Still, middle-income units are vastly over-represented.
Why is this wonky math important? Because the coalition BrooklynSpeaks is, for now, the only game in town, briefing local elected officials who don’t have time to keep up with the project’s details.
Their big-picture analysis, showing the skew to middle-income units, is important, but we should remember that the buildings with the lower-income units came online only in 2016 and 2017, when the income limits were lower.
Hence the new graphic from my collaborator Ben Keel.
As I explain, in the 2023 column above, the (putative) purple low-income rent levels, and thus incomes, would’ve been higher. Interestingly enough, the orange middle-income rent levels for 2023 were lower than allowable, because the latter would not have been viable in the market.
From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
Jan. 13: After Philadelphia approves new downtown arena, NBA's 76ers agree with landlord Comcast to build new shared (with NHL's Flyers) arena at current complex.
Jan. 16: Is Related deal already cooked regarding the fate of six development sites over the MTA’s Vanderbilt Yard Latest lobbying report excludes Atlantic Yards. Greenland USA is still lobbying, surely regarding the planned project at Site 5, catercorner to the arena.
Jan. 17: As the Brooklyn Nets struggle on the court and to fill seats, new promotions to sell tickets, like the no-fee offer above. New "ecosystem" progress: a collaboration with the (partially owned) Brooklyn Paramount on the showing of a basketball film.
Jan. 19: After one year, Glide Brooklyn ice rink at Brooklyn Bridge Park becomes Roebling Rink, without BSE Global. OK, so not everything in the “ecosystem” has to work.