Amazon Drops $22M on Orland Park Site for Retail Store

Amazon is putting real estate muscle behind its biggest brick-and-mortar bet yet.

Amazon paid $21.5 million for roughly 35 acres at the southwest corner of 159th Street and LaGrange Road in Orland Park, Illinois, clearing a key hurdle for what it calls its largest-ever store format.

CoStar reported that the Seattle-based company closed on the land last month, according to Cook County property records, less than a month after Orland Park’s board of trustees signed off on its development plans. The seller was an affiliate of James Dremonas’ Pete’s Market grocery chain, whose family long operated the Petey’s II restaurant on part of the site.

The planned 229,000-square-foot store will blend a traditional big-box layout with a small warehouse component to support operations. The concept will offer a broad mix of groceries, household goods and general merchandise, according to Orland Park officials — a direct shot at rivals like Walmart and Target, both of which operate large stores near the site.

The property also sits near Orland Square mall, embedding Amazon in one of the southwest suburbs’ dominant retail corridors.

Local officials have pegged a 2027 opening date. The project is expected to generate about 200 construction jobs and 500 permanent positions once up and running, according to village representatives. An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from CoStar News about the construction timeline.

The purchase marks a tangible escalation of Amazon’s physical retail ambitions after years of fits and starts, including the scaling back of some Amazon Fresh grocery stores. Since acquiring Whole Foods Market in 2017, the Seattle-based company has tested a rotating cast of store concepts nationwide, including Amazon Fresh, Amazon Grocery and cashierless Amazon Go locations. Other experiments — Amazon Books, Amazon 4-star and Pop Up stores — have been shuttered, as the company refined its approach.

— Eric Weilbacher