The first Wayfair banner brick-and-mortar retail store will open near Chicago in Wilmette, Ill., the municipality announced.
Wayfair stated that it would have no comment on the store plan and directed HomePage News to the Village of Wilmette website and announcement.
The Wayfair banner store will follow on from the company’s first new physical retail location under the AllModern banner, which opened in May. The AllModern store, in Lynnfield, Mass., offers a technology-driven shopping experience with consumers able to tap employee assistance and online resources, Wayfair stated.
According to the village of Wilmette, WS Development, a Massachusetts-based privately held mixed-use developer with properties that include lifestyle and community destinations, is purchasing Edens Plaza and has executed a lease with Wayfair for more than 152,000 square feet of retail space, located about 14 miles from Chicago at the northwest corner of Lake Avenue and Skokie Boulevard, just off I-94, the Edens Expressway. The development will take space that was home to a Carson Pirie Scott.
WS Development also runs the Marketplace development in Lynnfield where the new AllModern store, at 10,000 square feet total space and 7,500 square feet of retail space, operates. Wayfair plans call for physical stores under various of its retail banners, with a second AllModern and a Joss & Main store planned to open this fall, according to the company. The second AllModern will open at Legacy Place, in Dedham, Mass., and the Joss & Main in the Burlington Mall in Burlington, Mass., a Simon property.
The Edens Plaza location will be the first to feature the new Wayfair retail concept when it opens, according to announced plans, in mid-2023. Wayfair opened a namesake store in Natick, MA, in 2019 then closed it in 2020. With a little more than 3,500 square feet of retail space, it was a much smaller store than the one that will debut in Wilmette.
“It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to bring a first-to-market experience to the community of Wilmette in Wayfair and to help steward the evolution of a place that’s served the community so well and for so long. We look forward to working with the Village to position Edens Plaza for its next chapter,” said Dick Marks, vice chairman and partner at WS Development.
