Huntley’s Amazon warehouse on track to open in summer

The Amazon warehouse in Huntley is on track to open this summer, and construction is progressing on time, according to people involved with the project.

Amazon has been building a 630,000-square-foot receiving center since early last year on Freeman Road near the intersection of Route 47 and Interstate 90. Huntley officials said they are hopeful it will have positive benefits for the Huntley community when completed.

“Not only does that benefit the village, it benefits the school district, park districts, fire districts; I think it’s far-reaching,” said the village’s director of development services, Charlie Nordman.

So far, the project remains on track to open during the third quarter, according to the timeline presented to the Village Board last year, Amazon spokeswoman Caitlin Polochak said. Nordman said he expects the building to be open for business in June or July.

“The focus [of the construction] now is on the interior of the building,” Nordman said.

Much of the exterior construction work has been completed, Nordman said. The building itself is mostly built, road and traffic signal work in the area has been completed, and landscaping has been added, with more to come in the spring.

“It’s been a good project,” he said. “They moved quickly.”

Like most construction projects taking place over the past several months, the Amazon project encountered some supply chain issues, which was not unexpected, said Ryan Stoller of Venture One Real Estate, the Rosemont development company overseeing the project for Amazon.

“We successfully managed through that,” Stoller said.

When completed, the new warehouse is expected to create 1,000 jobs and generate $800,000 in property tax revenue. This kind of business and traffic will be beneficial to the area’s economy, Nordman said.

“We feel well prepared for not only Amazon but additional development in the area of the interchange,” Nordman said.

Overall, Huntley officials have not heard any significant pushback from residents on the Amazon project, Nordman said. He said people are generally used to having other warehouses in the area on Freeman Road, including a distribution center for Weber Grill located next to the Amazon development. Residents are most often concerned about the extra amount of truck traffic the facility will create.

“That’s something we believe we strongly addressed through the review process,” with mostly minor road improvements by adding traffic signals and some turn lanes on Freeman Road, Nordman said.

When completed, the Amazon warehouse in Huntley will serve as a central receiving location where products come to the warehouse and are then sent out to smaller delivery centers in the area, such as the location approved by Crystal Lake last month.

Crystal Lake officials gave unanimous approval to build a delivery center for Amazon at 275 S. Main St., which is expected to create 500 jobs. It is scheduled to be completed around the beginning of 2023.

After the December tornado that destroyed an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, a St. Louis suburb in Illinois, both Nordman and Polochak said they are making sure the Huntley warehouse follows building codes.

“With all projects the village sees, we issue building permits, and we are doing a building code review to make sure it meets building codes,” Nordman said.

The building code Huntley follows requires a warehouse such as Amazon’s to withstand winds up to 105 mph, Nordman said. The Edwardsville tornado, which killed six people at the warehouse, was an EF-3 category tornado with winds up to 150 mph, according to the National Weather Service in St. Louis.