It’s known for providing a large selection of nearly everything grocery-related, and now Woodman’s Food Market is coming to the north side of Plainfield.
The mega-grocer started work this spring on a 36-acre site at the northeast corner of Route 59 and 119th Street, with plans to open its 20th store there in October 2026.
The busy intersection just south of the Naperville border is the perfect site for the next Woodman’s store, since it’s easily accessible from several surrounding communities, said Clint Woodman, company president.
“We looked at a number of sites and always came back to this one,” Woodman said about the Plainfield property. “We always like to be at a major intersection off of a major highway so we can pull customers from long distances, because our stores are really big, so we need a lot of customers to make them successful.”
Size and scale? Much larger than a Costco
Describing a Woodman’s store as “really big” could be considered an understatement. Jake Melrose, Plainfield’s economic development director, said the Plainfield shop will be 243,500 square feet.
“For reference of size and scale, a Costco is typically around 150,000 square feet,” Melrose said.
Woodman said each of his company’s 19 stores is part retail and part warehouse, storing products for distribution throughout all Woodman’s locations in Illinois and Wisconsin. The company has its own trucking system — another reason convenient locations are key.
Business efficiencies in warehousing and distribution also help Woodman’s offer discounted prices, which the company president described as “upwards of 30% off versus a normal grocery store.”
“We’re low-priced, and variety is the main reason customers shop with us,” Woodman said. “We’ll have the best prices on all the different sizes and varieties of items that we carry — much less than a normal grocery store.”
Plans include outlots, intersection improvements
Plainfield leaders are excited for the development, which Melrose said the village board approved in 2024. Site plans call for a gas station, convenience store and car wash along with the grocery store, and the entire operation is expected to employ about 215 people, Woodman said.
When complete, the site will also include between 7 and 9 outlots for separate businesses and intersection improvements to adjacent roads.
Melrose said construction is expected to start this year to upgrade 119th Street with a new traffic signal at Spaulding School Road. Then, next year — pending approval from the Illinois Department of Transportation — improvements on Route 59 are scheduled to begin. The $10 million project would widen the intersection at 119th Street with new and extended turn lanes.
The new Woodman’s is also expected to generate more than $700,000 to local taxing bodies once the site is fully built out, Melrose said.
Woodman’s ‘worth the wait’ for broad target market
Construction of a Woodman’s store typically takes about 14 months, Woodman said, and the company aims to open a new location roughly every two years. Its newest stores include sites further north in the suburbs in Bloomingdale, Buffalo Grove and Lakemoor. The Plainfield shop will draw its department managers from these and other nearby stores and hire all other employees for the new site beginning next summer.
With such a large operation, the store opening process takes a while, Woodman admits. But he said “it’s worth the wait” since the store truly carries something for all customer types and tastes.
“Our target market is not a specific demographic,” Woodman said. “It’s everyone.”
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