FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Asian American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia AACCGP stands with the hundreds of businesses we represent in Chinatown and urges the City Council to negotiate for a larger Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) amount, as the current $50 million CBA is grossly inadequate. The data provided in the city's community impact study clearly estimates that nearly half of Chinatown's businesses will face negative impacts from the arena. While the developers proposed to make an average PILOT/U&O payment of $6.0M/year over 30 years which makes $5.5M/year in year-one of operations and increases 10% every 10 years, based on our assessment and data collected from a recent Small Business Owners' survey, we agree with Councilmembers Brooks and O'Rourke that a substantially higher investment from the team would compensate for the property taxes that the city and school distric are foregoing as a result of the plan to lease the arena site to the 76ers. As such, the Chamber supports the proposal made by At-Large Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O'Rourke which advocates for minimum of $300M CBA amount.
Many of our constituents are disappointed with the Mayor’s decision to endorse the 76ers’ plan to build an arena in Center City.
Asian American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia (AACCGP) will be establishing a special committee, and we are prepared to work closely with the Mayor’s team, the City Council, developers of ‘76 Place at Market East’ and most importantly our community members and business owners in Chinatown to make sure that the perceived issues mentioned in the Impact Study will be properly addressed.
To this day, AACCGP has actively participated in meetings and cooperated with the community organizers, developer’s team and individual businesses in our membership to offer a dynamic space where meaningful dialogues could occur. Board members, President & CEO and several members of AACCGP were in attendance at the recent town hall hosted by the Mayor. AACCGP is grateful for the opportunities to be invited to speak and to have the ability to keep the Asian American business community informed.
As a Chamber of Commerce, our main focus is and will always be the growth and creation of businesses, however, the overall impact of this project on our members is far greater than the possible positive outcomes for the businesses. We respectfully call for transparency and request further details from the Mayor and developers including on how the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) and the City of Philadelphia will support Chinatown and Asian-owned businesses in the affected area.
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