Amazon’s Biggest Retail Bet Yet Is Coming to Illinois

Amazon has come a long way from being just an online bookstore back in the 1990s. In Orland Park, Illinois, Amazon has plans to open a 230,000 square foot shopping behemoth. Not a fulfillment or distribution center that sends out a fleet of delivery vehicles. This will be a brick-and-mortar store with groceries and merchandise. Think Walmart Super Center, but bigger.

To be fair, Walmart had this idea too, back when Amazon was just an idea that Jeff Bezos was pondering. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Walmart opened up a handful of Hypermart USA locations. Kansas City, Topeka, and a couple of places in Texas had stores bigger than SuperCenters that we know today. This Amazon store will be a little bigger than those Hypermart USA stores.

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The proposed Orland Park, Illinois building, not including the parking lot, will be bigger than 5 acres. Far bigger than Amazon’s previous physical locations that focused individually on apparel called Amazon Style, or Amazon Books, which sold tangible books as an homage to Amazon’s beginnings. Amazon had a store for higher end products that were all highly rated online called Amazon 4-Star. Those all closed. Amazon has found success with their Amazon Fresh grocery stores with 11 stores in Illinois and 58 total in 9 states.

Artist's rendering of what completed project will look like

This new approach seems to fold all of the above and more into one enormous shopping venue. Will Amazon be able to grow this concept more than their previous physical locations? Can they outdo the Hypermart USA experiment from Walmart? We will find out starting next year (2027).