Joliet's Pottery Barn Outlet Faces Online Property Auction

JOLIET, IL — November marks the two-year anniversary since hundreds of shoppers waited outside the old Gander Mountain store in Joliet for the grand opening of the new Pottery Barn Outlet store at 3301 Essington Road. Now, the Pottery Barn Outlet store in Joliet faces an uncertain future.

Newmark just posted an announcement this week on LoopNet alerting investors all over the country that the 7-acre Essington Road site near Interstate 55 will be the subject of an online auction starting Dec. 6.

The minimum starting bid for the Dec. 6 property auction is $500,000.

Built in 2005, the former Gander Mountain building encompasses nearly 67,000 square feet. The property includes 329 parking spaces, according to the investment brokers.

"Currently, the property is fully occupied by Pottery Barn on a short-term lease through November 30th, 2022," the listing on LoopNet reads. "Neighboring retailers include Best Buy, Value City Furniture, Outback Steakhouse, and Chuck E. Cheese, to name a few."

So far, the Pottery Barn Outlet in Joliet has made no public announcement about vacating its retail store at the former Gander Mountain.

Joliet Patch reported back in November 2019 that Joliet's new Pottery Barn Outlet marked the company's first outlet store in Illinois. The two closest ones were in St. Louis and Detroit.

During an October 2019 interview with Joliet Patch, current city of Joliet economic development director Derek Conley said, "We're very happy to fill one of our big boxes. I think that's one of our busiest commercial corridors ... so it will be good for the city to add the Pottery Barn Outlet to the mix."

According to its website, the Joliet Pottery Barn Outlet store remains open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The Pottery Barn Outlet at the old Gander Mountain location shows 83 Google Reviews, averaging 3.6 stars out of 5 stars.

According to the LoopNet listing, property tours are now available by appointment only.

Investors interested in touring the Pottery Barn Outlet property are asked to contact James Schutter at 312-224-3210 or by email at jschutter@ngkf.com.