Amazon opening 4-star store in Oakbrook Center

An Amazon 4-star store is coming to Oakbrook Center as the online retail giant continues to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint.

Oak Brook officials confirmed Amazon plans to open a 4,834-square-foot store offering a selection of popular items that have earned ratings of four stars or more from Amazon.com shoppers.

The Amazon outpost will occupy a portion of the former Sears store in the outdoor mall, filling some of the void left by the unexpected departure of the longtime tenant. Sears had operated in the center for almost 60 years and had just gone through a remodeling and downsizing when its parent company announced the closing earlier this year.

Lindsay Kahn, a spokeswoman for New York-based Brookfield Properties, the owner of Oakbrook Center, did not return phone and email messages Thursday.

Tony Budzikowski, the village's development services director, said officials have not received any target dates for the opening of the 4-star store.

"Oakbrook Center is very competitive in the Chicagoland area and continues to attract new and innovative retail, restaurant and entertainment uses to their Lifestyle Center," Budzikowski said in an email.

Amazon also is remaining mum on virtually every detail.

"I can confirm that, yes, we are excited to be bringing Amazon 4-star to the Chicago area, and we are currently hiring. Stay tuned for more details down the road," a company spokeswoman said in an email.

Oak Brook Village President Gopal Lalmalani said mall representatives have been tight-lipped about the new addition. He said he learned a couple of weeks ago the Amazon store is coming to Oak Brook and then subsequently found out it would move into part of the Sears space.

"I don't have any other information," Lalmalani said.

Amazon's expected presence in Oak Brook is welcome news to village officials after a failed bid last year to attract the Seattle company's second national headquarters to the former McDonald's campus, one of 10 Illinois sites pitched to the tech behemoth.

"We welcome them. We wanted Amazon coming to Oak Brook at least in part, but they decided to go to the East Coast," Lalmalani said.

Amazon opened the first 4-star store in New York's SoHo neighborhood a year ago. At checkout, in-store shoppers can use the Amazon app or debit or credit cards, but not cash to make their purchases.