A well thought out, inclusive design review process is nothing new for Philadelphia. Look back to the early 2000s, when Philadelphians demanded more of a voice in big projects that would change the landscape, riverfront, and daily use of the city. The Civic Vision for the Central Delaware changed planning history in Philadelphia through a public planning process that was citizen-driven, transparent and informed by best practices; engaging thousands in imagining the future of a waterfront. The proposed arena would similarly change the landscape and daily use of our city. The Civic Design Studio at Drexel’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation is trying to foster better understanding and dialog to help understand how this big project would impact our daily lives around some issues we all care about like our neighborhood life & connectivity, commuting, quality of life, and how could the arena look & feel.

On October 24, 2024, Drexel’s Lindy institute Civic Design Studio put forth the following principles with the intention of helping Philadelphians analyze the urban design impact of the arena on the future of East Market Street and our city.

Because the legislative process is on a fast track, our goal is to provide you with some tools to better inform your questions to council members and local leaders. We believe that this project represents an opportunity to codify a world-class civic design into law. If we’re successful, this development will be a true civic asset that future generations can be proud of. Let’s seize this moment to get East Market Street right.

We will continue to work on fleshing these out with case studies, promising practices, and other useful tools for the public to understand the potential urban design impact of the arena on economic development, transportation, sense of place, and quality of life. For each we will do the following:

• Offer examples of cities that have successfully implemented large scale civic buildings (stations, arenas, convention centers) in urban areas;

• Provide information and visuals that explain the impact of the proposed arena;

• Use the details from each principle to ask what we feel are the important questions for our public officials, local leaders and the developers.