Philly Youth Basketball hopes a $50M workforce hub can help young adults ‘on a really big scale’

Philly Youth Basketball, a nonprofit that hosts a range of programming within the sport and outside of it from its massive Nicetown facility, is expanding its footprint.

On Friday, it announced a $50 million workforce development project called The Generator. The 40,000-square-foot building will be constructed next door to Philly Youth Basketball’s home, the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center, located at 4250 Wissahickon Ave.

The Generator is designed to help adults from ages 18 to 29 build pathways to careers in skilled trades like carpentry and welding, healthcare, tech, and entrepreneurship. Its offerings will include hands-on training and certification, a small business accelerator, and clinical health and mental health resources.

The Generator will also focus on developing its young adults’ soft skills, through services like career coaching and job placement, financial literacy education, and supplementary essentials like drivers education and academic support. Philly Youth Basketball estimates 600 young people each year will be involved in its certificate programs.

The organization plans to break ground next fall, with an estimated opening of early 2029.

“In our city, it is entirely too hard for young adults, especially those who’ve not gone to a well-resourced K-12 schooling experience, who’ve not had a college diploma, who don’t come from an affluent, high social capital family … to build a career and to transcend one’s circumstances,” said Kenny Holdsman, president and CEO of Philly Youth Basketball.

“And we think we can do something about that on a really big scale,” he said.

Philly Youth Basketball has raised $10 million for the project so far, largely through philanthropic donations. As part of the overall funding, $1.5 million has come through the state’s Redevelopment Capital Assistance Program, including a newly announced additional $500,000 from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration. Other money has come from the Small Business Administration. It’s unclear where the rest of the funding will come from.

“What happens here is different than what happens anywhere else. I believe this is a special place,” Shapiro said, at an event announcing plans for the workforce hub.

“Here in Pennsylvania, we recognize all pathways to success and opportunity, and we invest in them. Whether you go to college, you go to the military, you go to a union training hall, all of those pathways deserve our respect and all of them deserve our investment,” he said.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said expanding career pathways in the trades was especially valuable, given that artificial intelligence would not easily replace those jobs. She said the Generator would help young people who might otherwise face barriers to economic mobility.

“We’re teaching young people how to fish. Our city will be safer when folks are going to bed at night and waking up in the morning to do a job that will allow them to take care of their families, go on a vacation, live with a sense of dignity and pride,” she said.

Philly Youth Basketball has been running programs throughout the city for over a decade, but did not have a permanent space until it opened the Sixth Man Center in 2024. The facility was designed to use basketball as a means of positively impacting Philly youth and exposing them and their families to opportunities outside of the sport.

The Sixth Man Center features not just six full-size courts and basketball programs for all ages, but a healthy foods cafe, and spaces and programs focused on education, mental health, and entrepreneurship. Holdsman said the 100,000-square-foot facility welcomes about 1,400 visitors a day, and even more when it has hosted other community events, like 8,000 attendees at a recent Eid celebration.

The Generator represents the culmination of Philly Youth Basketball’s mission to go beyond athletics. Holdsman said the organization identified a need to help young people not just growing up, but after high school too. They chose to focus their work on careers in the trades, healthcare, and tech, Holdsman said, because the fields demonstrated growth, reliable credentialing, trainers and educators who could be relatable to young adults (and especially young Black men), and pathways for economic mobility.

Amin Ray, 17, has embodied the organization’s “kinder to career” model. The Germantown high school senior has been involved with nearly every program Philly Youth Basketball has to offer, beginning with basketball when he was 11 and then branching out to off-court offerings.

Now, he’s part of the first cohort of the organization’s Varsity Trades Academy, which will serve as an onramp to the Generator before it opens. Ray and the 49 other academy participants have received instruction in various trades, and he has become most fascinated with carpentry.

“It’s something about — after you finish a job … and you ride past, that satisfaction. You’re telling yourself, ‘Yeah I built that,’” he said, pointing out a set of wooden benches he and the cohort built that people attending the event were sitting on.

He will finish with the academy in December, and start working in a manufacturing program in partnership with the Community College of Philadelphia in February while he finishes his virtual school program. Twelve others from the academy have already been placed in jobs through the program.

“As human beings, we’re never done learning. We’re always still growing. So as much knowledge as you can possibly obtain, the more valuable you can be as a human being,” Ray said.