Hoffman Estates is ready for the former Sears headquarters to shed its affiliation with traditional retail and welcome a tech-driven project.
The suburban village, along with ComEd and Compass Datacenters, held a kickoff event Thursday to celebrate the sprawling site’s transformation into a massive data center campus — a 197-acre site that would become one of the largest of its kind in Illinois and Compass’ first data center campus in the state.
Compass CEO Chris Crosby visited the Sears site while it was still operational. He sees the site’s future as long-lasting as a data center and said it’ll a 100-plus year facility, intentionally designed to be refreshed over time.
“This will be a center of economics — a different world of economics, but the center of economics for a very long time,” Crosby said.
The project will become one of the 10 largest data centers in Illinois and represent the continued growth of the data center market. Real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield ranked Chicago No.7 for its 2024 list of the country’s top 10 markets for data centers. Chicago is also among the markets that have added a “large amount of capacity” for data centers over the past year, according to the report.
“Every single thing you do touches these types of locations,” Crosby said. “I think it’s hard for people to recognize just how much everything goes into a data center — that cloud lives somewhere, AI lives somewhere and it really is driving the economy today.”
Dallas-based Compass bought the site in September 2023 for $194 million. At the time, it remained tight-lipped about its use. It’s since announced plans to build five hyperscale data centers, each expected to span over 250,000 square feet.
The development is projected to bring an estimated $10 billion in investment in the coming years, with the first data center expected to be powered by ComEd in mid-2026.
Compass also expects to create 1,000 new jobs through construction.
Hoffman Estates Mayor William McLeod was on the village board when the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. moved into its building in 1992 from downtown Chicago.
The headquarters “transformed the west end of Hoffman Estates,” McLeod said. In addition to infrastructure improvements and new roads, the campus “was teeming with people” and was the village’s largest employer. Now, after Sears’ 2021 exit, McLeod is ready to see the site enter a new chapter.
“We are thrilled to welcome Compass Datacenters and to have the village of Hoffman Estates be part of the growing digital economy,” McLeod said. “Working closely with ComEd and Compass, we look forward to bringing this prime site into the modern era.”
ComEd helped secure 15 new commercial projects in the region last year, including nine data centers.
The world is increasingly being driven by data, which needs a lot more power than it did in the past, said ComEd CEO Gil Quiniones.
Carol Stream’s American Demolition is currently completing select demolition at the site. Demolition will take about 18 months, according to Compass, before construction can begin.
Compass anticipates starting construction in late 2025.
The company plans to use sustainable practices during both the demolition and construction process such as crushing and reusing concrete, stone and asphalt from Sears’ buildings.
