Amazon Plans Second Big-Box Store Near Chicago

Amazon has proposed a second big-box store in the Chicago area, Mass Market Retailers (MMR) reported Tuesday (Feb. 17), citing a paywalled article in the Chicago Tribune.

The company submitted to local officials a proposal for a store in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, after doing the same earlier in nearby suburb Orland Park, according to the MMR report.

The proposed facility in Oak Brook would be a 225,000-square-foot retail store with no warehouse or distribution facilities, the report said.

The store would be designed as a retail store, rather than a warehouse club, and it would not require a membership fee, per the report.

If approved after a public hearing and a review by the Village Board, the Oak Brook store could be constructed by late 2027, according to the report.

Bloomberg reported in January that Amazon was seeking approval for a big-box store in Orland Park. That report compared the proposed 229,000-square-foot Orland Park store to a Walmart or Target location and said it would sell groceries, general merchandise and prepared foods.

“We regularly test new experiences designed to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, including physical stores,” an Amazon spokesperson said in the Bloomberg report. “The site in question is our planned location for a new concept that we think customers will be excited about.”

In another recent move, Amazon announced Jan. 27 that it is closing its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical grocery stores while adding more same-day grocery delivery services.

“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company wrote in its announcement.

Amazon added that it will convert some of these locations into Whole Foods Market stores and that Whole Foods will open more than 100 stores in the next few years, including a growing number of the convenience-focused Whole Foods Market Daily Shop.

In November 2023, Amazon said it was closing its Amazon Style physical clothing stores. At the time, the company had two such stores in operation.