(Read more on the industrial market.)

MINOOKA, IL-Macy's Inc., with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York City, will move its Chicago distribution center to a newly constructed 850,000-sf, single-story facility at 600 Mid Point Rd. Macy's is purchasing the facility and the 48.6-acre parcel it is located on from Opus North Corp., headquartered in Rosemont, IL. The acquisition price was not disclosed but a spokesman for Macy's says the company will invest $50 million for the center, which includes the acquisition costs of the building and land in addition to the cost of equipment for the new facility. Representatives from Opus North declined to be interviewed.

Macy's current distribution center is at 4000 W. Diversey Ave., Chicago. The building had been used by Marshall Fields as a distribution center before Macy's acquired May Department Stores in 2005, the spokesman says. The current distribution center is a six-story, 1.5-million-sf facility and is not efficient. "The logistics systems today is that the trucks with your merchandise pull up to the side of the building and the merchandise comes out of the trucks and into trucks on the other side," he says. "The merchandise stays in the distribution center a matter of minutes as opposed to weeks or months or days."

The new single-story distribution center will employ 210 people, down from the 350 workers currently employed at the current facility. A furniture clearance store in the current distribution center will lease about 50,000 sf in a retail center in Aurora, IL. The lease is still being negotiated, the spokesman says. The current facility in Chicago will be sold after closing in 2008.