Peoria Civic Center

Peoria Civic Center is an entertainment complex located in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Philip Johnson and John Burgee, it has an arena, theater, exhibit hall and meeting rooms. It opened in 1982 and completed an expansion to its lobby and meeting facilities in 2007. On the grounds of the Peoria Civic Center sits the massive Sonar Tide, the last and largest sculpture of the pioneer of abstract minimalism Ronald Bladen.

The site of the Civic Center includes the spot at Liberty Street and Jefferson Street, where Moses and Lucy Pettengill lived from 1836 to 1862; that house was part of the Underground Railroad and Moses was also an Underground Railroad "conductor". In 1862, the Pettingills moved out of downtown and to Moss Avenue, where the present Pettengill–Morron House was built in 1868. The downtown home was demolished in 1910 to make way for the Jefferson Hotel. The hotel, in turn, was imploded in 1978 to make way for the Civic Center. Peoria Civic Center opened on June 6, 1982. The first event at the Civic Center was a home and garden show in the Exhibit Hall in February 1982.