Amazon and Ashley Furniture Eye Teardown in Oak Brook

Oak Brook is poised to trade cubicles for shopping carts.

A developer submitted plans to raze seven aging office buildings along Butterfield Road in the village west of Chicago and replace them with a 225,000-square-foot Amazon retail store and a 150,000-square-foot, two-story Ashley Furniture flagship. The Chicago Tribune reported that the 22-acre site at 2805-2907 Butterfield Road sits along I-88 and marks the latest push to reinvent the village’s struggling office corridor as a retail hub.

Village President Larry Herman told the outlet that the Amazon store would be about 40 percent larger than the nearby Costco and would function strictly as a retail operation — not a distribution warehouse. Amazon is also planning a similar large-format store in Orland Park as it experiments with brick-and-mortar concepts.

As part of the deal, the developer would fund a new traffic signal and dedicate land for future westbound I-88 access ramps at Meyers Road, aimed at easing congestion and unlocking further development.

The proposal heads next to the Planning and Zoning Commission for a public hearing before returning to the Village Board for final approval. If greenlit, demolition could begin later this year, with construction stretching through 2027.

Oak Brook does not levy a municipal property tax, meaning sales tax revenue is the village’s primary funding source, and officials expect the two anchor stores to generate several million dollars annually while drawing additional retailers to the Butterfield corridor.

Herman framed the project as a strategic response to long-term suburban office distress. Several of the seven buildings slated for demolition have been repossessed by lenders, and he said many properties along the corridor are unlikely to rebound.

The move would also create retail continuity between Oakbrook Center and Yorktown Mall, reinforcing the village’s position as a regional shopping and dining destination, according to the publication. Costco, which recently began a multimillion-dollar expansion, isn’t expected to suffer from the new competition, Herman said, arguing the membership warehouse and Amazon operate on distinct merchandising models.

— Eric Weilbacher