PHILADELPHIA — Here is what we know about the plan, put forth by the 76ers’ managing partners, to build an NBA arena at 10th and Market Streets. We know that the partners are estimating, for now, that the arena will cost $1.3 billion to construct. We know that the partners are promising, for now, to fund its construction without any city dollars. We know that the plan calls for the arena to be completed by 2031, the same year that the Sixers’ lease with the Wells Fargo Center expires.
Here is what we don’t know: We don’t know what we don’t know. The arena, theoretically, would open nine years from now. Nine years is a long time. The Sixers, the city, the country, and the world will change in profound ways over that period, and right now, we have absolutely no idea how.
Go back nine years, to 2013. How many people, when asked to name the person who would most affect our political life and discourse over the subsequent decade, would have said Donald Trump? How many, when asked what sort of event might cause the most damage and upheaval to our fragile global balance, would have said they were most fearful of a novel virus? Take an example that’s less significant but more to the point: In 2013, how many Philadelphians even knew who Joel Embiid was? Today, he’s the primary reason the Sixers are popular enough that they might consider building their own basketball palace.
