Slammers and Joliet start early on stadium lease

The Slammers and Joliet have started early on negotiations for another lease at the city stadium.

The Slammers’ lease expires at the end of the 2023 baseball season, but the two sides are talking now and may wrap up another lease agreement soon.

An agreement now would be a big change from the negotiations on the current five-year lease, which was approved by the City Council on the night the Slammers won the 2018 Frontier League championship and just two weeks before the previous lease expired.

Councilman Pat Mudron, chairman of the Stadium Committee, said a new lease agreement could be reached by the time the Slammers season starts this year.

The first game of the season is May 12.

The Stadium Committee met with Slammers Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations John Wilson on March 31 in closed session to discuss a new lease.

Mudron said there were no major disagreements on either side.

“We had a couple of small changes, and he didn’t see a problem with it,” Mudron said Tuesday.

The Slammers pay a standard rent of $75,000 a year, although the city reduced rent during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the team’s reduced revenue.

Mudron said he is waiting to hear from Deputy City Attorney Chris Regis, who is negotiating the lease for the city, before calling another Stadium Committee meeting to review an agreement that would then go to the City Council for a vote.

Mudron gave a brief report on lease negotiations at a City Council meeting last week when he also suggested an agreement might be ready before the start of the baseball season, saying, “We hope to be back here by the first meeting of May.”

The Slammers have had the lease on the city stadium, now called Duly Health and Care Field, since 2011.

They are only the second team to lease the stadium, which opened in 2002 and was home to the JackHammers until 2010.

The lease always has put the team that rents the city stadium for its games in charge of managing the city stadium.