In our spotlight on Business report.

The Murphy administration is down, but not out when it comes to landing the 70 Sixers.

State officials tell NJ Spotlight News they haven't given up on their bid to lure the professional basketball team to the Camden riverfront.

That's despite an announcement last week by Philly's mayor stating she struck a deal with the team, paving the way for a new arena to be built in the city's Chinatown.

As our budget and finance writer John Reitmeyer notes, the governor's team says that doesn't mean New Jersey is out of the running.

And he's with me now in studio.

John, good to talk to you.

This story just keeps unfolding.

What is this newest development that you've learned from the folks over at the EDA?

It's good to be with you today.

I think the way that the state is looking at this or the Murphy administration is sure that's a setback to have this agreement announced.

But until the final plan is approved by the city council, it's not a done deal.

And so as long as there's a window and you can use whatever sports metaphor here you'd like that they see an opportunity to continue to try to be an alternative vision and the arena location in Philly has drawn some pushback.

And so there's still a process that has to play out, just like you.

And I know with the state legislature, sometimes the governor might make an agreement and it has to still go through the legislature.

And that can take time.

And the team apparently is under a little bit of a deadline in terms of when it wants to get started on a new arena because it has a lease running out almost a decade from now.

But because you have to get a project like this, a project of this scale started, they have a little bit of a deadline they're working on, too.

So the state's not quite ready to give up.

This isn't, say, Shark Tank where they say, Well, this was our best offer and now it's now it's off the table.

I love that analogy.

Yeah.

I mean, they can't just whip up an arena overnight.

But what are the differences between what New Jersey is offering and what we know about Philly's offer?

Because, yes, they do have a hurdle in front of them, because a lot of the neighbors of Chinatown and those in Chinatown say we've already been squeezed out by development.

We don't want this here.

There's a big effort to block it.

What's New Jersey proposing That might be a little bit more persuasive.

Yeah, I think you're on to something there, just in the sense that there seems to be unity on the New Jersey side of the river.

Whether you listen to the Camden mayor, local representatives all the way up to the governor speaking about this, whereas you do apparently have that.

A little bit of a disagreement in Philly when it comes to what, say, the mayor's administration would like to do.

And then what maybe some people in the neighborhood that would be impacted by this development.

Right now, the team plays in South Philly, which is sort of in a sports complex area that's a lot different than Center City, Philadelphia, which is more within neighborhoods and business districts.

And so there will be an impact.

There's transportation considerations, traffic, mass transit, you know, Philadelphia's mass transit system is having some challenges just like ours is.

So there's still a lot of different things at play, for sure.

But the idea would be that only in New Jersey, everybody's singing off of the same song sheet versus where we see a little disagreement.

But also a lot of money.

And as you wrote in your piece, you know, it's not just the money, but also the fact that there are financial reports that show just because you build an arena here or bring a sports team, it doesn't necessarily translate into the type of economic boon that legislators or someone from the EDA is saying it will.

Absolutely.

And so that's a whole other element of this story, is New Jersey has this long simmering debate about the benefits of of tax incentives and publicly funded tax credits.

And so this project, as it's been proposed on the New Jersey side of the river, would apparently qualify for some of the big programs that were remade under Governor Murphy's administration versus what we had in place when Chris Christie was governor.

The prior programs were much criticized.

Murphy's administration is very confident that things like net benefit tests, community benefits agreements, local hiring mandates that some of the things that have been layered into the new versions of these incentive programs will do a better job of delivering those types of promised benefits that maybe we don't see in other places that may not have as strict of an incentive program as New Jersey believes it has.

So they're saying there's more oversight.

Now, we've built this into the program itself.

Therefore, we can look ahead and say there's going to be more of a benefit.

That's the that's the promises that have been made.

And again, I think if the administration feels like the programs as they exist now, play a little bit better defense to keep going with this sports theme, then say some of the incentive programs that have been in place in New Jersey in past years and maybe in other parts of the country.

But I think the jury's still out on that for sure.

John Reitmeyer.

Of course, you can check out his piece on our website NJSpotlightNews.org.

John thanks for coming in.

You're welcome.