Amazon has officially launched its first Chicago delivery station in the city’s Pullman neighborhood. Ryan Companies served as the master developer for the 62-acre Pullman Crossings industrial park, in collaboration with community developer Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI).
“Twenty years ago, Ryerson Steel and others left this community taking nearly 40,000 jobs with them. But where others saw abandonment, this community saw opportunity—developable land and folks eager to work,” said 9th Ward Alderman Anthony A. Beale. “Luckily a little more than a decade ago we found partners in U.S. Bank and Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives who helped turn our ideas into a reality. So today it is my great pleasure to welcome Amazon to Pullman Park, the city’s most vibrant industrial park. We are glad you chose our community for your first Chicago address.”
The new 145,000-square-foot facility will bring 200 to 300 full- and part-time jobs to the area as the latest company to situate in the city’s fastest growing industrial park. Ryan has now developed and built three industrial facilities totaling 685,000 square feet at Pullman Crossings since 2017, transforming what was previously one of the largest undeveloped sites in Chicago and contributing to economic renewal in Pullman.
“When we look back at what we’ve accomplished at Pullman Crossings over the last three years, we see it as a model for how developers and community stakeholders can drive urban regeneration by working in tandem to harness a variety of resources,” said Jim McDonald, market leader of the Great Lakes Region for Ryan Companies. “From having the foresight to recognize the benefits this location offered, to navigating the various tax credits and financing incentives that made investment here attractive, to leveraging client and partner relationships to draw tenants to Pullman, the efforts we’ve made in collaboration with our investor and community partners have revived blighted land and brought a wave of business activity and job creation to Pullman.”
Amazon is the latest company to have located in Pullman Park over the past decade. The first was Method Products, which opened its first U.S. plant there in 2014. Method was soon joined by Gotham Greens, which recently built its second greenhouse in the park, a free-standing 105,000-square-foot facility, and Whole Foods that relocated its Midwest distribution center from Indiana to Pullman Park in 2017.
Prior to the opening of the industrial park, Alderman Beale, CNI and others created the area’s first shopping center. Anchored by Walmart, the vibrant commercial center houses a Planet Fitness and a Ross Dress for Less. Recently, the retail center expanded south with the addition of the One Eleven Food Hall, a Potbelly’s restaurant, Star Cleaners, a Blue Door Blue Cross and Blue Shield of IL wellness center, and a locally-owned Culver’s restaurant that is under construction and expected to open in Spring of 2021.
“There are many contributing factors that go into our thought process when we consider where to place a new delivery station,” said Domonic Wilkerson, senior station operations manager, Amazon Logistics. “Among the important factors in that process is the workforce. We found talent in abundance in Pullman. We’re proud to be a job creator.”
