Amazon’s bid for big-box glory has some locals concerned it’s just another warehouse

In the southwest suburbs of Chicago, the affluent village of Orland Park will soon become the testing ground for Amazon’s latest attempt to develop a successful brick-and-mortar store—a goal that has so far confounded the reigning e-commerce giant, which just last week announced plans to shutter all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations.

What exactly is being proposed remains uncertain, however, as the company said the still-unnamed retail project is a “new concept” still under development. And while the village board has already approved a 230,000-square-foot building at the site, the experimental nature of the project—as well as Amazon’s dubious track record with physical stores—has left some residents worried about what kind of facility is coming into their community.

“I was mayor for eight years. I’ve never seen a project that has this much opposition,” Keith Pekau, former mayor of Orland Park, told Retail Brew. The biggest concern among residents he’s spoken with, Pekau added, is that the project’s proposed location is part of a corridor zoned for retailers and restaurants, while this project appears to be a “warehouse.”

“You know dressing a dog as a pig doesn’t make it a pig, right? You can say retail all you want, but it looks like a distribution center,” he said.

Amazon declined Retail Brew’s request to provide more details on what portion of the space will be used for distribution or to address community concerns about the building operating as a warehouse.

Pekau pointed to a Wall Street Journal report quoting Amazon that half of the massive space—which is considerably larger than the average Walmart supercenter—would be used for retailing groceries and general merchandise, while the other half would be used for fulfillment. “Fulfillment is distribution, and that's not a permitted use,” he said.

The designation is something local proponents of the project firmly deny. During the packed board meeting where the project was approved, village officials were insistent the project was not a fulfillment center but a clear attempt by Amazon to get into brick-and-mortar retail.

“It was pretty straightforward from the word go,” Jim Dodge, Orland Park’s current mayor, told Retail Brew last week shortly after the approval. “This was about having a substantial retail location, as opposed to any other type of distribution or warehouse center.”

In his view, Orland Park wouldn’t be a suitable location for a distribution center anyway, given that nearby Amazon warehouses are significantly larger than what is being proposed. The real appeal of the community, he said, is its status as a regional shopping destination. Orland Park is one of the top municipalities in Cook County for retail sales tax generation, he said.

Daniel McMillan, president of the Orland Park Chamber of Commerce, said what he found most encouraging about the project is that it was driven entirely by private investment, something that is “very unusual” because “most companies want a sales tax incentive.” He also said Orland Park’s appeal is likely that it’s “the retail driver of the Southwest suburbs.”

Pekau said he isn’t convinced the community’s retail potential is the main draw. He said the project looks more like a “last-mile facility” that would complement larger distribution centers nearby while giving the e-commerce giant better access to a major consumer market for deliveries.

• The Orland Park project comes as Amazon plans to expand same-day delivery of food items to “many more communities in 2026,” adding to the more than 2,300 cities and towns that can already order fresh groceries through same-day delivery.

Changing the narrative: Whatever Amazon’s intentions, contending with its history could be the greatest barrier to convincing skeptics such as Pekau that it’s serious about retail.

“If Amazon pulls out like they have everywhere else, what do you do with a 228,000-square-foot building?” he said. “How do you repurpose that when you already have 12 million square feet of retail, and we already have issues with filling our big boxes?”

Given the increased size and scale of this attempt, even supporters admit the stakes are high.

“It’s high stakes for a lot of reasons,” Dodge said. “There were people in town saying, ‘Wait, Amazon’s tried this before. It hasn’t gone so well.’...Everybody can agree to that fact. What’s also true is Amazon is huge, Amazon is successful, and we believe that they’re committed to making this type of investment, this type of format, work.”