The “wish fulfillment center,” as Amazon calls its warehouses, would occupy a 150,000-square-foot structure to be built on former Ryerson Steel property. About 500 construction jobs will be created, with 200 to 300 permanent positions after construction is completed by the end of the year, Beale said.

Pay figures are not available, but at a somewhat larger facility Amazon recently announced it will open on the site of the former Maywood Park horse track, the firm indicated pay would begin at $15 an hour. The Pullman jobs will be located not far from some of the neediest and most job-short neighborhoods in the city.



“We could not be happier," said Beale, reporting that the center will be located immediately north of Amazon's existing Whole Foods distribution center. “It underscores that Pullman is rapidly becoming the new green industry/transit logistics and distribution center of Chicago,” with more than $350 million in private investment in recent years.



Beale pegged Amazon’s investment at $60 million. The company will seek a county property tax abatement that could slash its property tax by more than half for a decade, Beale said, but those are relatively routine for new industrial projects nowadays. The City Council would have to approve the tax break.



Amazon has been edging closer to the city proper with new distribution facilities after initially focusing on Joliet, Aurora, Waukegan and other outlying suburbs, apparently hoping to get orders faster to city residents. The company does have one small warehouse on Goose Island on the North Side.

Jan. 27 update: Mayor Lori Lightfoot is expressing some skepticism about whether the deal is fully baked.

“I don’t think there is anything to talk about yet,” she told reporters at an unrelated event today. “We haven’t heard anything from Amazon. So I think Ald. Beale got a little ahead of himself.”

However, Beale is standing by his story. “I feel fully confident this deal will get done,” he said, with some preliminary land clearance already underway.

Officials at Amazon and Ryan Companies, which owns the property, did not immediately return requests for comment.

Lightfoot and Beale have a very hostile political relationship—perhaps one of the reasons he went public with the news himself. But one City Hall source says Amazon actually is looking at several locations, of which the Pullman site is only one under consideration.