Bolingbrook Not Happy with Amazon’s Land Purchase
February 13, 2020 5:32PM CST
At Bolingbrook’s State of the Village of address presided over by Mayor Roger Claar, the topic of Amazon was discussed and it was announced that the online giant purchased the Old Chicago property, most recently an auto auction business, located near the I-55 and Rt. 53 interchange. The price tag was nearly $51 million for the 119 acres, which comes out to $425,000 per acre.
Our sister station, 1340 AM WJOL, has learned that of the 18 national developers that expressed interest in the property, 17 of them either came to the Village, called the Village or emailed them discussing their plans if they were successful in acquiring the property. The only company that did not was Amazon who didn’t make contact until they were considered a finalist.
Mayor Claar tells WJOL that Amazon’s plans are to build a 800,000 sq. ft. facility that would be between 8-10 stories tall (100 ft). “We have a building height restriction and the property is not zoned industrial” says Claar. He also said the I-55 and Rt. 53 interchange is already too congestion and the truck and cars generated by Amazon would only make things worse.
Amazon has been welcomed with open arms in basically every municipality in Will County, but in the case of Bolingbrook, it doesn’t look as if things will be so easy.