“I told them I wouldn’t support it when they met with us,” last month, Claar told Gallun.
Apparently Amazon is so accustomed to getting its way with local officials that Claar’s emphatic rejection didn’t make much of an impression. Amazon closed its $50.5 million purchase of the 119-acre Bolingbrook site anyway.
In doing so, Amazon appears indifferent to Claar’s concerns. He worries about the proposed building’s height, the traffic it would add to already-congested roads, and the quality of jobs in Amazon warehouses, which pay $15 an hour to start.
Such jobs have proliferated across the Southwest suburbs, which are capitalizing on their rail lines and highways to tap into the burgeoning distribution economy. Amazon and others are building distribution centers at a rapid clip as online retailing overtakes traditional stores and warehouse work fills the gap left by fading factory employment across the country. With 7,000 workers at six Will County locations, Amazon is the county’s largest employer by a wide margin.
Yet Claar’s response suggests there’s a limit to municipal appetites for more warehouses, even in the I-55 corridor. Who knows, he may only be angling for a better deal from Amazon. But he already holds a strong hand; Amazon needs zoning waivers to build the 100-foot tall windowless structure in Bolingbrook, where Claar has called the shots for more than 30 years. Perhaps more important, Bolingbrook isn’t hurting for business investment.
Opposition from a suburban potentate like Claar is potentially more worrisome for Amazon than the outcry from progressives that scuttled company plans to put half a second headquarters in New York City. Historically, Claar has been anything but anti-development. During his long tenure, Bolingbrook has greenlighted massive shopping malls, myriad subdivisions and vast warehouses that transformed a sleepy village into a sprawling commercial hub.
Amazon’s own rapid growth depends in no small part on warm receptions for its warehouses from exurban locales like Bolingbrook. For two decades, Amazon has been able to pick its spots pretty much at will.
Any change in local attitudes spells trouble for the company’s time-tested expansion strategy. Getting the right locations is essential, especially as Amazon moves into groceries and promises one- or two-hour delivery on many items.
Community resistance could hinder those initiatives, which require distribution sites closer to population centers. After years of building or leasing warehouses on undeveloped land along metropolitan fringes, Amazon needs space in inner-ring suburbs and city neighborhoods. Around Chicago, the company is opening warehouses in Melrose Park and Skokie, and considering Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood for another.
Claar’s complaints prefigure the issues Amazon could face in densely populated areas. Traffic congestion worsens as you move closer to metropolitan centers. Architectural design and consistency with surrounding buildings get more attention. And activism over pay and working conditions intensifies.
Sure, many towns will still welcome Amazon. They’re not all as economically blessed as Bolingbrook, making them more likely to roll over for any company offering jobs. Skokie and Melrose Park were happy to get warehouses, and Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale is working hard to bring one to Pullman.
It’s no secret why municipalities want Amazon. Warehousing and distribution is a growth sector, creating entry level jobs for people without college degrees, a vanishing commodity in today’s economy. The industry drove a turnaround in Will County, which was decimated by the collapse of its manufacturing base in the 1970s and 1980s. Employment in warehousing and transportation surged 68 percent to 24,100 in the three years ending in 2018, and the county’s jobless rate has dropped to 3 percent from 12.9 percent a decade ago.
I don’t blame local leaders for trying to tap into that growth. And I’m not against Amazon’s continued expansion in Chicago.
But I hope the company and municipalities learn a couple of lessons from Roger Claar. The first is that communities have legitimate concerns about Amazon facilities. If the company doesn’t address those concerns, officials are well within their rights to withhold any special treatment Amazon needs to build new warehouses.
The second lesson is that towns have more leverage than they might think in dealing with the online behemoth. Unlike with HQ2, warehouse locations are critical to executing the company’s strategy. Each site is chosen based on specific characteristics Amazon is looking for. So if Amazon wants to put a warehouse in your town, it may need that location as much as you need the jobs.
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