It appears that Amazon, one of America’s Big Five technology companies, will open and operate a planned $20 million warehouse and distribution center in 2025 at North Dirksen Parkway and Bissell Road in Springfield.
The company, based in Seattle and suburban Washington, D.C., didn’t respond to a request for comment. But Sangamon County property records show Amazon bought a 31-acre site at the Springfield’s intersection’s southeast corner for $2.85 million on Nov. 27.
Work on the former farm field began Dec. 2 to prepare the site and contain any erosion, Keith Larreau, a superintendent for California-based general contractor KPRS Construction Services Inc., told Illinois Times when a reporter visited the site Dec. 6.
Ryan McCrady, president and chief executive officer of Springfield Sangamon Growth Alliance, “We’d be very excited to have Amazon as part of our community.”
The Growth Alliance, a nonprofit partnership between local governments and private businesses that promotes economic development, has spent several years marketing the community nationwide as an ideal site in the Midwest for the growing logistics and distribution industry.
“This is definitely a win for our community, without a doubt,” McCrady said.
Ward 4 Ald. Larry Rockford, in whose ward the northeast Springfield site is located, said, “I think it’s awesome.”
There were rumors for months that Amazon would operate on the site. Rockford said he considered the land purchase confirmation that Amazon will, in fact, set up a distribution hub in Springfield.
“There’s a lot of positives,” he said. “They could be a good neighbor for the city.”
Working for Amazon, which also operates distribution hubs in Champaign, North Pekin and Edwardsville, is “a career for a lot of people,” Rockford said.
The site is north of Buffalo Wild Wings at 2808 N. Dirksen Parkway, west of a FedEx warehouse at 2915 Granger Drive and less than a mile west of Interstate 55.
“It’s a good fit out there,” Rockford said.
The site received unanimous zoning approval from the Springfield City Council in October as a “large-scale development” that was titled Project Capitol. The end user wasn’t disclosed at that time and wasn’t required to be made public.
There was no public opposition to the project.
Kyle Schott, vice president of real estate development for Project Capitol’s developer, Westmont-based Ryan Companies, told IT in October that the location, with a 71,000-square-foot warehouse standing 32 feet tall, was likely to open in late 2025 and create about 100 permanent, full-time jobs.
Schott didn’t respond to phone messages for this story. The property’s former owner, Glen Garrison, a longtime commercial real estate broker and developer who founded Garrison Group Inc., declined to comment on the land transaction.
But Garrison, who still owns a 2½-acre vacant lot on the west side of North Dirksen and north of Buffalo Wild Wings, said the Bissell Road distribution center likely will attract more restaurants, gasoline stations and other ancillary businesses to that part of Springfield.
“Development breeds development,” Garrison said.
Schott said in October that the distribution site would be a “last-mile delivery facility,” where goods are received from another hub and transferred to their final destination, such a customer’s home or a business.
It’s reasonable to assume that an Amazon distribution warehouse opening in Springfield would mean faster local deliveries of products purchased through Amazon, McCrady said.
The zoning approved by City Council included plans by the developer to improve Bissell Road, a two-lane, city-owned thoroughfare. City Traffic Engineer T.J. Heavisides said a quarter-mile section of Bissell, east of North Dirksen, will be replaced with a thicker pavement to accommodate heavy truck traffic.
Plans call for three entrances along Bissell to the development. Heavisides said a traffic study conducted by the developer indicated there won’t be enough traffic on Bissell, even after the project is complete, to justify adding additional lanes.
Springfield’s proximity to interstates 55 and 72, its network of rail lines, and the city’s location, which allows trucks traveling the legal speed limit to reach almost one-third of the nation’s population in a day, all give the city strategic advantages in attracting distribution companies, McCrady said.
The addition of Amazon, along with plans for a 226,800-square foot warehouse project at Palm Road and I-55, is likely to lead even more businesses to consider Springfield, he said.
Illinois Times has confirmed that the Palm Road project, which received City Council approval earlier this year, will be used as a Frito-Lay distribution center and is expected to create 150 to 200 permanent, full-time jobs.
Editor's note: This story has been updated from the original version that was published online.
