Main and Main

I attended the January 6, 2026, Orland Park Plan Commission meeting. Let’s see…there was me…oh, and a room full of citizens plus the media with TV cameras.

I’m not sure why there were some early concerns that this meeting was deliberately scheduled on top of a holiday to suppress turnout. It looked like everyone who wanted to be there was there, and then some.

The agenda was crowded with a number of items but nearly everyone in attendance was waiting for the Amazon presentations. Chairman Parisi wisely adjusted the agenda to place the Amazon issue at the front of the meeting.

After the initial presentations by the Petitioner (Amazon) and a follow-up by Orland Park staff, the floor was open to the public for their input.

I was just there to watch.

A member of staff read into the record a couple of written remarks from the public. One in particular was a very simple statement that this particular person was not in favor of any development.

Period.

Others had more things to say over things like traffic, trucks, parking, and the overall impact.

Especially trucks.

Trucks are synonymous with Amazon. It is understandable that people would be dubious of a large Amazon retail facility because of…trucks…and traffic.

Shopping centers, in one form or another, have been in the zeitgeist for over a hundred years in this country.

When Victor Gruen drew plans for the first enclosed shopping mall back in the early 1950s, he envisioned a community space akin to a town square that was shielded from the elements with a controlled climate that would mimic an eternal spring.

While the decision-makers in Minnesota were thrilled at the prospect of an enclosed mall, there were others, like today, who thought otherwise.

‘You’re eroding the downtown businesses.’

‘This is a car-centric development.’

‘They’re privatizing public space.’

‘There is too much traffic. Too many trucks.’

That’s what was said back in 1956 when the 80,000 square foot, enclosed, Southdale mall became the first-of-its-kind. Even seventy years ago…trucks.

Twenty years after the first enclosed mall opened, Orland Square’s 1.2 million square feet of retail was opened for business and joined nearly two thousand other enclosed malls across the country.

Today, we can’t imagine Orland Park without the mall.

Retail was in transition.

It still is.

It will always be in transition. Designs fall in and out of favor constantly.

I’m confident that the Board of Trustees will weigh the Plan Commission’s recommendation and consider the opposing views that were presented by the public.

Amazon did their homework. So did the Orland Park staff. The trucks and the traffic were addressed, as was the landscaping, parking, out lots, sewers and all of the other less sexy parts of municipal responsibility.

The Amazon development is nothing more than another retail transition. A first-of-its-kind in 2026.

Like the Southdale mall was in 1956.

This will be a case study for years to come. Other communities across the country will want to learn from what happens with this project. Amazon needs to point to a success story. Orland Park will be the blueprint for future Amazon wins in brick and mortar.

In the words of the presenters, this development will be at the corner of Main and Main. They are correct. This is, arguably, Orland Park’s most important retail corner.

Amazon needs this to work as much as the village does. Retail is in a constant state of transition.

So is Orland Park.