Amazon Opening Third Chicago-Area Warehouse
E-commerce giant Amazon.com is opening a third Chicago-area fulfillment center in Romeoville, Illinois. The company didn't receive any local or state tax breaks.
Employees at the more than 750,000-square-foot warehouse will pick, pack and ship large items, such as big-screen TVs, sports equipment and kayaks, Amazon said in a news release July 26.
"It's very exciting for us. To have a large employer of this scale come into your community and bring in hundreds of new jobs almost overnight is always a positive," Romeoville Mayor John Noak said.
After years of keeping physical operations out of Illinois to avoid sales taxes, Amazon has been rapidly ramping up operations in Will County. Amazon announced plans for its first Illinois warehouse last summer, a 500,000-square-foot facility employing 1,500 in Joliet. In May, Amazon announced that it would add an even bigger 700,000-square-foot facility with more than 2,000 full-time jobs in Joliet.
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Will County's transportation network and easy access to Chicago make it an attractive site for logistics companies — particularly a company like Amazon that's trying to expand its ability to offer same- or next-day delivery of online orders, said John Greuling, CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development.
"It's great news for Romeoville. It's a brand we're not embarrassed to wear on our sleeve," he said.
Will County has more than 9 million square feet of industrial space under construction this year and continues to see a lot of interest from logistics companies, Greuling said.
Although Amazon has fielded criticism for tough working conditions at its warehouses, Greuling said the need to retain those employees amid growing demand for e-commerce distribution center workers has helped wages and benefits.
Amazon is advertising full-time fulfillment associate jobs at the Romeoville warehouse at $13 per hour.
"We are excited to add this new fulfillment center in Romeoville," Akash Chauhan, vice president of Amazon's North America Operations, said in a news release. "Expanding our footprint in Illinois brings hundreds and hundreds of full-time jobs with competitive pay and great benefits starting on day one to the state."
Noak said the distribution center was projected to employ at least 600 people and be open by this fall. The warehouse was originally built as a distribution facility for Montgomery Ward, he said.
Noak and Greuling said Amazon isn't getting any local tax breaks and, in contrast to both previous Joliet projects, the state isn't offering any either, said Kyle Ann Sebastian, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
When Amazon announced its second Joliet facility, the state offered tax breaks expected to be worth at least $2 million a year for a decade.
Amazon isn't the only e-commerce company expanding in the Chicago area. Radial, a company that handles order fulfillment for other online brands, also has Will County warehouses in Bolingbrook and Romeoville. On July 26, Radial announced plans to hire 300 people to help with a tenfold increase in the number of orders it expects to handle during the holidays this year compared with last season.
Those jobs will be seasonal, but some employees may be able to remain depending on how much Radial expects orders to grow on an ongoing basis, said Robyn Jordan, Radial's senior director of North American operations.
Express shipping service DHL also is expanding its e-commerce operations in the Chicago area with a new 38,000-square-foot facility in McCook. That warehouse will employ 50 people, handle more than 2,500 shipments per hour and deliver packages to individuals and businesses on Chicago's South Side and south and west suburbs, DHL said in a news release on July 27.
