Illinois
Demolition under way at old Sears headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. (CBS) –An era has come to an end in northwest suburban Hoffman Estates, as crews on Thursday were working to tear down the old Sears, Roebuck and Co. corporate headquarters.
CBS News Skywatch flew the scene as crews began ripping apart the 2.4 million square-foot office building.
The property at 3333 Beverly Rd. in Hoffman Estates was acquired by Compass Datacenters in September of last year, and a new data center will be built on the site.
Sears first moved into the headquarters in 1992, after receiving a series of incentives—reportedly valued at $240 million—to lure the company to the sprawling suburban office park from its old corporate headquarters at the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower.
Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, and the company formed to purchase its assets, Transformco, put the Hoffman Estates headquarters up for sale three years later.
Sears: A history intertwined with the history of Chicago
The roots of Sears, Roebuck and Co. date back to the 1880s in Chicago—when watch retailer Richard W. Sears and watch repairman Alvah C. Roebuck founded a mail-order company. Initially selling watches and jewelry, the Sears catalog quickly became an Amazon for the turn of the last century—selling, among many other things clothing, bicycles, sewing machines, sporting goods, musical instruments, and guns, the Sears archives website noted.
In 1895, clothing manufacturer Julius Rosenwald became a partner in Sears. Rosenwald is credited with bringing in the business strategies that sent Sears booming—with sales jumping from $750,000 to $50 million between 1895 and 1907, the Sears archive notes.
Rosenwald was also known for placing his focus on the customer, with the pledge of “satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back,” the Sears archive notes. He is also known for founding Chicago’s Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, and for his philanthropic efforts—notably including the establishment of thousands of schools for rural Black youth in the South.
Sears’ first retail store opened in 1925, under the leadership of Gen. Robert E. Wood, Brittanica notes. This store was at the Sears Merchandise Building at the company headquarters near Homan Avenue and Arthington Street on Chicago’s West Side.
Three more stores opened in Chicago 1928—at Lawrence and Wolcott avenues in Ravenswood, at 79th Street and Kenwood Avenue in Avalon Park, and at 62nd Street and Western Avenue in Chicago Lawn.
All these stores remained in business until relatively recent years. The Western Avenue and 79th Street stores both closed in 2013—the 79th Street store is now a self-storage facility, while the Western Avenue store was torn down in 2020. The Lawrence Avenue store closed in 2016 and has been redeveloped into apartments and a DeVry University campus.
Stores also quickly opened elsewhere around the country—and retail sales had outpaced mail-order sales by 1931, Brittanica noted. Sears benefited tremendously from an economic boom after World War II, and was not surpassed as the nation’s largest retailer until future parent store Kmart dethroned it in the 1980s, and Walmart later dethroned both, Brittanica noted.
In 1973, Sears moved into Chicago’s Sears Tower—which opened as the tallest building in the world. Nearly two decades later, Sears was offered the largest tax break ever for a company in Illinois to move to Hoffman Estates—a move that a 2020 Daily Herald and ProPublica review said did not pay off for the northwest suburban village as hoped.
Sears and Kmart merged in 2004. Published reports note that Sears hit a peak stock price of $195.18 a share in 2007, but then fell into decline—with the company no longer being profitable by 2010. Store after store closed around the country—with 1,250 locations left by the summer of 2017, compared with 3,400 at the beginning of 2006.
The last Illinois Sears store, at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, closed in November 2021. There are now only 11 Sears stores left.
Illinois Senate Democrats are trying to impose limits on artificial intelligence, or AI, in the final weeks of the legislative session.
The proposed package of eight different bills would target specific areas impacted by the emerging technology, including its effects on mental health and the usage of AI in schools.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham said because Congress has not put much regulation around AI, state lawmakers feel they have to step into the void.
“Artificial intelligence, or AI, can be a powerful tool for good, but currently there are minimal guardrails in place. It’s like the wild, wild west. Illinois needs to create a roadmap for responsible innovation to prevent catastrophic risks. And that is why we are all here today,” said State Sen. Mary Edly-Allen.
Edly-Allen’s proposal, which passed out of committee Wednesday and now heads to the full Senate, aims to increase transparency from big AI companies like ChatGPT and Claude. It would require large companies to make annual reports explaining what they are doing to prevent what lawmakers call “catastrophic risks.”
If a company learns about a critical safety incident, it has to report it within 72 hours, or 24 hours if the incident poses a serious risk of harm or death.
Another bill, led by Sen. Laura Ellman, aims to address the growing number of young people turning to AI during a mental health crisis, specifically people who confide in a chatbot about their suicidal thoughts. AI companies would have to implement methods to detect self harm and refer the user to a resource, such as the suicide hotline.
Other bills try to crack down on AI being used to fix rent prices, curb someone’s data from being used for targeted ads or sold to third parties, ban teachers from using AI to grade a student’s work and cut down on bots scooping up tickets to concerts and sports.
The current legislative session is set to end on May 31, with lawmakers working to pass a host of bills before that date arrives.
IKEA announces new locations opening for 2026
IKEA revealed plans to open 10 new stores in various U.S. cities by 2026 as part of its expansion strategy.
The Chicago metro area is getting its first Dutch Bros cafe this week, with additional Illinois locations set to open later this year.
The West Coast coffee chain announced the openings in a press release Wednesday, May 13, adding details about available freebies.
Dutch Bros coming to Melrose Park
Dutch Bros will be making its Chicago suburbs debut in Melrose Park, with doors set to open Thursday, May 14, at 1931 N. Mannheim Road.
The cafe will operate from 5 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Melrose Park customers will be able to snag a free keychain with any drink purchase on opening day, while supplies last, according to the chain.
“Opening in the Chicago area has always been a dream for us at Dutch Bros, and Melrose Park is just the beginning,” Dutch Bros Local Market Lead Allie Lahti said in the release.
Where else is Dutch Bros opening locations in Illinois?
The chain also announced plans to open cafes in Rockford, New Lenox and Buffalo Grove, with locations slated to open this summer. The chain lists the Rockford location as “coming soon” to 7103 E. State St. on its website.
Meanwhile, job listings for “Broistas” at 550 W. Maple St. in New Lenox and 80 McHenry Road in Buffalo Grove are available for applicants on the site.
But that’s not all.
A spokesperson for the Village of Oak Park told NBC News Chicago the chain “is also in the process of opening a location in Oak Park” at 316 Madison St.
The village approved plans for the new location in October 2025, and the chain told NBC the cafe is still “in the very early stages.”
Peoria City Councilman Alex Carmona told the Journal Star in April that a new Dutch Bros location will be built at the busy intersection of University Street and War Memorial Drive.
Construction is set to kick off in May at 3624 N. University St., with the location slated to open in the fall.
The Peoria Journal Star reached out to Dutch Bros about the upcoming Illinois locations and will update this story accordingly if a response is provided.
List of Dutch Bros locations in Illinois
The coffee chain has five existing locations in the following Illinois cities:
CONTRIBUTING: JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star
The amount of state and local taxes paid here also is near the nation’s highest.
Illinoisans continue to pay the highest combined state and local tax rate in the country, according to WalletHub.
Effective state and local tax rates totaled almost 17% for a median Illinois household last year, compared with the national average of just over 11.02% and higher than No. 2 New York, at 14.95%.
The median amount of state and local taxes for an Illinois household was $12,538 last year, fourth-highest in the country. The national median was around $8,949. (These amounts use a different household measurement.)
Illinois’ burden is driven by property, sales and excise taxes that exceed national averages and those in neighboring states.
Property taxes are especially high, with an effective rate of 1.92% of the value of a typical home, more than double the national median of 0.89%.
Sales taxes are also elevated in Illinois, with a 6.25% state rate and a nearly 9% combined state and local rate on average.
High taxes were a top-two issue for 58.1% of likely Illinois voters in a recent poll. State residents aren’t waiting for lawmakers to hear their concerns — almost all of the nearly 83,000 who left Illinois in 2024 went to states with lower taxes.
In Iowa, the neighboring state with the next-highest combined state and local tax rate, the annual tax total for median household is over $3,841 less than in Illinois. Indiana and Wisconsin also impose significantly lower combined burdens.
Illinois needs to reduce its tax burden to encourage more people and businesses to stay or move here. That cannot happen without improving fiscal responsibility. Lawmakers should consider reforms such as:
- Enacting a spending cap to ensure the state’s budget grows responsibly.
- Rightsizing agency spending by eliminating waste and returning costs to sustainable levels.
- Reforming pensions to prevent retirement obligations from crowding out necessary services and driving up taxes.
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