Amazon has proposed developing a site in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook that would raze existing office buildings and replace them with a 225,000-square-foot Amazon store and a 150,000-square-foot Ashley Furniture flagship location, according to the Chicago Tribune.
If approved, this would be the second big-box store in the Chicago area; in January 2026 Amazon cleared a local planning hurdle for a proposed 229,000-square-foot big box store in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park.
It’s another indication that Amazon is not giving up on brick-and-mortar, even though last month the company announced it would be closing all remaining Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores, although it did reveal plans for opening additional Whole Foods Market stores.
Oak Brook Village President Larry Herman said the proposed store there would be approximately 40% larger than a nearby Costco store and would function strictly as a retail operation, not a distribution warehouse, according to The Real Deal.
The proposal heads next to the Planning and Zoning Committee for a public hearing before returning to the Oak Brook Village Board for approval. If the project is approved, demolition could begin later this year, with construction likely stretching through 2027.