PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — Time is running out for the Peoria Rivermen as the team looks to renew its lease with the Peoria Civic Center.
“We’ve been here for 40 years we want to make sure we’re here another 40 years,” said Chief Operating Officer and Owner Bart Rogers.
The current lease is up May 31, 2023, however the team has less than two months to let the Southern Professional Hockey League know if they have a location to play for the next season.
Fans like Nick Sell are concerned about the Rivermen potentially leaving Peoria.
“It’ll make me feel not real happy. We’d be done supporting the Rivermen. We love them. We come here every week after week after week and support them. We love this place so they can’t go anywhere,” said Sell.
In addition to a lease renewal, the ice rink needs to be repaired. Rogers says as tenants the Rivermen organization is not financially responsible for the repairs.
“Right now we need a new lease number one. And we need to have the ice plant fixed here at the Peoria Civic Center which is a capital improvement investment for the City of Peoria and the civic center itself,” he said.
Rogers says the organization was in communication with the civic center in August, but the civic center staff wants to wait until April, when the regular season is over before discussing a lease renewal.
The Griggs siblings have been coming to the hockey matches since they were toddlers and hope the Rivermen and the civic center can come to an agreement.
“I would be very upset because what I said was we have been coming together since we were little and brings together a lot of family memories,” said Lauren Griggs.
“It would be kind of sad because I’ve been going here for so long. And just to see them kind of move away kind of sucks,” said Logan Griggs.
Though time is ticking, fingers are still crossed that the Rivermen will remain in Peoria.
“We have not started looking at other facilities. We are hopeful to be able to renew a lease here and be able to continue to play moving forward. Again without a lease, with no repair of the ice plant we can’t move forward here,” said Rogers.
