Going, going, almost gone: The Sears campus in Hoffman Estates is vanishing
The demolition of Sears’ former 2.4 million-square-foot headquarters in Hoffman Estates is entering its final stages.
“They’ve actually done an amazingly speedy job on this,” Hoffman Estates Mayor Bill McLeod said Wednesday.
The 273-acre site on the west side of the village is being cleared in preparation for Dallas-based Compass Datacenters’ construction of five hyperscale data centers — each more than a quarter-million square feet.
The project represents a $10 billion investment by the company and its partners.
Hoffman Estates officials said the last remaining Sears building and its parking garage should be cleared by the end of July. Concrete crushing and cleanup will continue through late August.
Foundation work on the first data center building is expected to start by the end of July, and the first three buildings should be in various stages of construction in the fall.
Compass’ Vice President of Development Brett Collard said the company has primarily developed its campuses for a single tenant, and that’s likely to be the case in Hoffman Estates. The company has not disclosed the identity of a potential tenant, however.
Hoffman Estates officials said each building is expected to take 14 to 16 months to build, with the final fit-out dependent on knowing who the tenant will be. The overall development likely to take three to four years.
While Compass is bringing one of the 21st century’s growth industries to the site, the removal of the 20th century retail giant’s presence began in the spring of 2024. Compass hosted a kickoff event for the transformation last June, which was followed by the start of external demolition in August.
The Sears headquarters once was one of the 30 largest structures in the world in terms of square footage, significantly ahead of the more vertical John Hancock and Empire State buildings, according to Jeff Olson, project executive for Carol Stream-based American Demolition.
The campus served as the company’s headquarters until it was put up for sale in 2021. At its peak, it was home to about 9,000 employees. But the firm’s 2018 bankruptcy filing was a major turning point in its long, largely successful history.
Its last remaining workers were sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, and none ever returned.
Compass officials said American Demolition was selected for the removal project for its ability to minimize waste and maximize reuse of materials.
Dominick DiSilvio, American Demolition’s vice president of estimating, said last year that about 95% of the structure would be recycled — keeping 400 million pounds of debris out of landfills.