Next steps for Huntley’s Amazon receive center

HUNTLEY – Since the property commonly referred to as the Stade Farm on 41W368 Freeman Road was announced as being the future site of an Amazon receive center, the developers Venture One Acquisitions, have begun groundwork on the southern 152 acres of the property.

According to the Village of Huntley’s Director of Development Services Charles Nordman, the groundwork began about four weeks ago.

“They’re doing a lot of earth work and that’s been primarily what they’re doing so far. So, they [have] I think a few more weeks of earth work going on out there before they start to actually make some of the improvements to the property or start to construct some of the utilities,” Nordman said.

The completed center will be approximately 630,000 square feet in size. Nikki Wheeler, a media relations spokesperson for Amazon, explained that receive center employees’ primary function, will be supporting customer fulfillment.

“Amazon’s receive centers support customer fulfillment by taking in large orders of the types of inventory that we expect to quickly sell, and allocating it to fulfillment centers within the network. Full- and part-time roles are available in these buildings which are about 600,000 square feet in size,” Wheeler said in an email statement.

The village’s website states that the investment in Huntley is approximately $100 million.

Huntley Trustee Ronda Goldman shared her excitement in the potential for growth this project could bring to the community.

“We are elated that they chose Huntley for their receiving center. It is a good location for them since we are at the crossroads of Route 47 and the 90-toll road. Investing $100 million into this location knowing the research that is done in choosing a site, validates what we believe about Huntley’s location and growth. We are eager to showcase the beauty of our area along with the friendliness of Huntley’s residents,” Goldman said.

“Those 1,000 workers may shop here, get their personal vehicles serviced locally, may want to try our restaurants, and might want to relocate to our Village. This is a winning situation in terms of taxes we can collect along with increased sales taxes. Having Amazon choose Huntley has increased attention from developers, manufacturers, businesses and companies. Hopefully there will be a snowball effect which will result in more housing options and more dining establishments. We are now on the radar of places to live, work and play.”

Nordman states that he understands residents’ hesitation regarding a potential impact in traffic flow in the area where the receive center will be located. However, he ensured that the Village of Huntley has put great effort in analyzing these kinds of situations to prevent major traffic issues.

“We’ve done a number of things and really going back a number of years. The full interchange was constructed with additional growth and additional development taken into mind. So, it took into consideration projects like this,” Nordman explained.

“The other thing we did then is required the developer to submit a traffic study when [they] first came to the village. So, the traffic study demonstrated that the existing road network was able to accommodate the proposed development in addition to the other growth expected in the area and then it also made recommendations for road improvements that were necessary to accommodate any circulation or any increase in traffic there might be. So, that’s what we required to the developer.”

Nordman went further to explain that the Village also worked with an engineering consultant that assisted by reviewing the traffic study.

“The village itself had an engineering consultant that assists with [reviewing] that study to make sure it’s correct and we feel it is correct, and to provide his recommendation as well. We worked on a lot of studies and reports related to traffic over the years, specifically to this project to make sure that yes, Freeman Road, Route 47 and the interchange with the tollway there, you can accommodate the increase in traffic,” he said.

Venture One provided village officials with a construction schedule, which Nordman said is being followed accordingly.

“They expect to have the project completed by June of 2022. So, they’ve got a full year plus on construction out there,” he said.

Additionally, land located to the north of the Amazon project will be developed at a later date, with Nordman speculating that the developers anticipate to add more warehouse distribution.