Amazon purchased Chicago’s first vertical logistics building last week to use as a same-day delivery center.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant purchased the two-story building at 1237 W. Division St. for $195 million, Crain’s Chicago Business first reported.
“Doing this allows us to effectively … make a delivery in a matter of a couple of hours instead of a couple of days and really shortens that distance that any vehicle — whether it be truck, van, or car — needs to travel to reach customers,” Kyle DeGiulio, Amazon’s senior manager of economic development policy for the Midwest, said. “We’re really excited to expand our footprint in Chicago.”
Amazon plans to start operations in late 2027 or early 2028. The West Town property, near Goose Island, will be a “sub-same day fulfillment center” that combines warehousing and delivery functions, DeGiulio said.
Rather than fleet vehicles, like Amazon’s electric Rivian vans, deliveries will be made by Amazon Flex drivers — workers who use their own vehicles akin to DoorDash or Uber drivers.
The facility will create 200 jobs, from fulfillment to managerial roles, with an average hourly wage near $24, according to DeGiulio. Amazon employees in Chicago will be offered the opportunity to transfer to the Division Street site.
The warehouse will be Amazon’s second same-day delivery center in Chicago. It has a similar center in West Humboldt Park that opened in 2023, despite the ire of neighbors.
DeGiulio said the new location will meet customers’ growing appetite for same-day deliveries, particularly for groceries and pharmaceuticals, that it’s seeing in Chicago and all of its markets.
“There’s a lot of things that people want from Amazon very, very quickly that exist in buildings that are further away and take a little bit of time,” he said. “Now, understanding customer behavior a little bit, the types of items that people want quickly, a site like this just gives us a better opportunity to serve them and also serves in an area where we feel that the surrounding infrastructure supports that operation, rather than trying to just drop this somewhere where it doesn’t necessarily fit.”
DeGiulio said Amazon has eyed the Goose Island area for a while but was waiting for the right opportunity. The Division Street site is “highly visible” and desirable for its quick highway access. It’s also near thoroughfares like Elston Avenue, which will allow drivers to get across the city faster.
He acknowledged the area’s traffic congestion but said the city’s infrastructure investments — like replacing the two Division Street bridges — made the company bullish on the location.
Logistics Property Co. broke ground on the roughly 590,000-square-foot warehouse in 2022. At the time, the property was the first multistory warehouse in Chicago, boasting truck docks on both floors and more than 1,000 parking spaces. But the building has remained vacant since its 2024 completion. Logistics Property tapped real estate firm JLL to help market the property.
Logistics Property declined to comment.
A marketing brochure from JLL and developer Logistics Property said the building is five minutes to the Loop and 15 minutes from O’Hare Airport. It also boasted an estimated $2 billion in e-commerce sales within a 5-mile radius.
Amazon owns multilevel warehouses across the U.S. and internationally, DeGiulio said. But this property is unique for its exterior, with murals and a colorful parking ramp visible from the Kennedy Expressway.
“It’s almost like this building was built for us to use,” he said.