76ers, developer team up to build Wilmington arena

A planned Wilmington sports arena won’t just be for spectators who come to sit and watch, though there will be 2,500 seats to do just that for NBA Gatorade League games.

The multipurpose 76ers Fieldhouse will also serve as a recreational center aimed at providing area residents, especially Wilmington kids, with a large, modern indoor destination for year-round fun and competition.

Among its features will be a full-sized soccer field with artificial turf.

“It’s going to be a beacon of light for these kids, a real place that kids can go and enjoy and be a part of,” said Steve Cavalier, executive director of the Wilmington-based Future Stars Soccer Foundation, which involves nearly 150 children ages 6 to 14.

The 140,000-square-foot facility will be constructed on 8.9 acres presently owned by the Wilmington Riverfront Development Corp. It will be situated just east of U.S. 13 (South Market Street) where South Walnut Street branches off on the north side of Garasches Lane west of the city’s Southbridge neighborhood.

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The complex is a joint venture of the Buccini/Pollin Group and the National Basketball Association’s Philadelphia 76ers, who will move their Gatorade League affiliate, the Delaware 87ers, to the new facility. They hope to break ground in early 2018 and open in late 2018.

The plans were revealed during a press conference Wednesday in Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki's office, where Purzycki called it "an ambitious project that reflects the yes-we-can attitude of our city and our state." 

The estimated cost is $26 million, with the city of Wilmington and state of Delaware paying a portion, though the amount has not been determined, according to Sarah Lamb of the Buccini/Pollin Group.

“We’re bringing back some hometown pride that is missing,” said Rob Buccini, co-president of the Buccini/Pollin Group with brother Chris. 

Rob Buccini said he and his BPG associates, who are also part of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union ownership group, were trying to develop an indoor facility to benefit soccer and other outdoor sports such as football, lacrosse and field hockey. The Union will periodically practice at the facility, Rob Buccini said Wednesday.

“There was a huge need for this,” Chris Buccini said.

Their needs happen to fall in line with those of the 76ers, who were seeking a different location for the 87ers, said Rob Buccini.

In addition to the 2,500-seat arena, practice basketball courts and turf field, the 76ers Fieldhouse will also contain a Nemours physical therapy and orthopedic clinic and Titus Sports Academy performance training center in what promises to be a beehive of often-sweaty activity. Titus presently has a Newark facility that attracts athletes from Wilmington, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which made a Wilmington location feasible.

 Gov. John Carney, a former St. Mark's High and Dartmouth College football player and longtime 76ers fan, credited the NBA franchise for "bringing this facility to our city" and said it would provide a "huge lift" for Wilmington youth.

One perk the structure will not contain is an indoor track. The Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association had to move its annual state indoor track and field championships to Landover, Maryland, in 2014 after the University of Delaware Field House track was covered by artificial turf.

Including a track “significantly increases the size of the facility,” said Rob Buccini after pointing out that there wasn’t available space and cost was also a concern.

The arena will also not be compatible for ice-related sports, such as hockey and figure skating.

The 87ers, who serve as the Sixers’ G League affiliate with players sometimes shuttling between the two teams, have played at the University of Delaware’s 5,000-seat Bob Carpenter Center since their inaugural 2013-14 season. After Tuesday's 105-96 win against the Northern Arizona Sun, just the 87ers' second victory in 10 games, average paid attendance is 1,249 in five home games.

“Newark hasn’t been a great location for them,” Purzycki said. “Here in the city we don’t have a team we can adopt as our own. I think we’ll get a better response out of our citizenry.”

Newark resident Keith Green, who has season tickets to 87ers games this season, could see why the team sought a move to Wilmington, even while he enjoyed his view from six rows up at Tuesday night's game.

"The experience has been great because they have a lot of things going on besides basketball that draw you in," he said, referring to various meet-and-greets. "I'll keep going but they've got to win. I have no problem with it."

Having coached youth sports in the Police Athletic League and Boys & Girls Club, Green particularly welcomed the recreational aspects the new center will provide for the community.

"It's important for the kids to have somewhere to go," he said, "because if they don't, where are they going? What are they doing?"

The team will be “rebranded” as part of the move to Wilmington, said 76ers president Chris Heck, adding that no determination has been made yet about a new nickname or if it will go by “Wilmington” instead of “Delaware.”

With the move to Wilmington, Heck said, “we expect to be at capacity” for home games. The G League, previously known as the NBA Development or ‘D’ League, has 26 teams, each tied to an NBA club.

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“I want to give credit to BPG because most likely we would not have been able to stay in the state of Delaware,” Heck said. “This gives us a solution we said we were looking for as UD is focused on its own programs, so it gave an opportunity to stay in Delaware and really get a restart right when the big-league team is taking off, so our timing is impeccable.”

The 76ers have been among the worst teams in the NBA the last several years while gathering high draft picks aimed at becoming a championship contender. They are 11-8 this season led by two of the NBA’s young stars – Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.

“There’s nothing of this sort in the area, certainly not in Delaware, but I don’t even think in Greater Philadelphia,” said Heck, a Wilmington resident. “From basketball to soccer to all these others sports that are out there, this is the highest quality caliber environment that anyone will see that enters into this building.”  

The 76ers Fieldhouse will be located about a mile southeast of Frawley Stadium, which initiated the development of the Wilmington Riverfront when it opened in 1993. Frawley Stadium is home of the Class A Carolina League Wilmington Blue Rocks minor-league baseball team, a Kansas City Royals affiliate, and the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.

"It'll be a beautiful, beautiful icon of a building when you enter the city from the south," Rob Buccini said.

Many of the children involved in the Future Stars Soccer Foundation, which is free for participants, come from difficult socio-economic backgrounds, said Cavalier. They presently have separate eight-week fall and spring programs using six different schools, community centers and Boys & Girls clubs in Wilmington, where they might just meet once a week.

The urban youth population has long been viewed as having considerable untapped potential by U.S. soccer followers.

“That’s part of our mission and vision, that it leads kids on a different pathway,” said Cavalier, who played soccer at Salesianum School and the University of Delaware.

The new facility, Cavalier added, “will provide a home to actually start a league, where the kids can play on the weekends and train.” Numerous small-sided games, he pointed out, can be played from side-to-side on the full-length field.

The complex will also provide a year-round training facility for Delaware FC, a blend of the Delaware Rush, Delaware Union and Kirkwood soccer clubs that brings top age-group area soccer players together.

Carney, who also played lacrosse at Dartmouth and coached the sport at St. Mark's, said he foresees the 76ers Fieldhouse as also being a possible site for urban lacrosse programs that have sprung up around the country.

The BCP Group will operate the facility and promise many offerings, such as basketball camps, will be free or provided at reduced rates to benefit city residents.

“One thing that really sold me and my brother on this with the Sixers was their commitment to reaching out to the community with basketball camps, things like that,” Chris Buccini said.

The University of Delaware Field House has the only other such full-sized turfed location in the state, and is has been a boon to Blue Hen teams as an indoor practice refuge.

“What happens is you build a facility like this,” Rob Buccini said, “this is going to give athletes from all walks of life an opportunity to play in a world-class facility.”

Staff reporter Christina Jedra contributed to this article.

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @kevintresolini.