Tag Archives: Amazon

Purple Hotel to Get New Life as Business and Residential Hub

A famous Chicago hotel is slated to become a new residential and commercial complex. The Purple Hotel, where Barry Manilow and Roberta Flack once took the stage, will become 300 apartments and a few stores, including an Amazon Fresh.

After nearly 15 years of deliberation, court hearings, and tenders, Chicago construction company Tucker Development has secured credit for the $155 million development in Lincolnwood. The project is also known as District 1860 in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s presidential election that year; project completion is set for 2023.

Leases have already been signed for nearly 15,000 square feet of the commercial properties, including a Fatpour Tap Works and a Fat Rosie’s.

Amazon Fulfillment Center Coming to Joliet

Amazon warehouse in Glenrothes, UK
Amazon warehouse in Glenrothes, UK

Amazon announced that it will soon be building a new 500,000-square-foot warehouse, known as a fulfillment center, in the city of Joliet, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. The giant on-line retailer promises that the new facility will be hiring about 1,000 full-time employees when it is completed.

Fulfillment centers are Amazon’s method to incredibly fast delivery of consumer products ordered from their web-site. The warehouses, filled with workers and products, process orders of a huge variety of items, including books, electronics, clothing, jewelry, and just about anything else that can be delivered by truck (or drone, in some places.)

At the end of April Crain’s reported Amazon’s intention to build a new center in Joliet, and that they had also leased space on Goose Island.

“We are thrilled that Amazon has chosen Joliet as the location for its new Illinois fulfillment center,” said the mayor of Joliet Bob O’Dekirk in a statement from Seattle-based Amazon.

Vice president of Amazon’s operations in North America, Mike Roth, said in a statement:

“We are grateful for the support of local and state leadership in helping to bring Amazon to Illinois and we look forward to being an active member of the community.”