Window shoppers at Westfield Old Orchard in Skokie may notice something unusual this holiday season amid the myriad clothing, jewelry and cosmetic store displays — a pair of illuminated headlights from a Rivian electric SUV staring back at them.
Rivian is formally opening its second Chicago-area showroom Friday at the open-air north suburban retail center, offering visitors the chance to kick the tires, look in the frunk or test drive the Illinois-built EV in between downing lattes and trying on puffer jackets.
The 3,500-square-foot space, tucked next to a Levi’s store and mall anchor Macy’s at the nexus of the shopping promenade, quietly opened two weeks ago, luring the EV-curious and casual passersby into the unlikely two-vehicle showroom where a women’s clothing store once stood.
“It’s nice because people have been seeing them on the street so much, but now they get to experience them up close and personal,” said Nate Leppink, general manager of the Old Orchard Rivian store. “It’s been amazing to see people walking in (saying), ‘Finally, this is here.’”
With Old Orchard, Rivian now has 15 retail “spaces” in the U.S. and one in Vancouver, Canada. Chicago, which is 130 miles north of the sole Rivian factory in downstate Normal, now has two retail locations — tied with New York for the most of any metro area.
Leppink previously ran the Chicago Rivian store, which opened in the Gold Coast in September 2023.
Staking turf at Old Orchard taps into a sales hotspot for Rivian, where its homegrown EV pickups and SUVs are gaining traction along the North Shore and beyond.
“We’re going to these very EV-friendly markets, and that’s where we’re doubling down,” said Tony Caravano, senior director of experiential marketing at California-based Rivian. “So, Chicago is very key to our future growth plans.”
Being the nearest major market to Rivian’s factory has also played into beefing up Chicago’s retail footprint, where building an EV on demand or buying one already assembled results in the quickest delivery in the country — sometimes within days, Caravano said.
In addition to the Gold Coast showroom, Rivian has a Chicago service center at 2033 W. Walnut St. on the Near West Side, one of 55 nationwide. There is also a service center at the Normal factory.
Rivian began building its full-size electric R1T pickup truck, R1S SUV and commercial delivery vans for Amazon in a former Mitsubishi auto plant on the outskirts of the college town in September 2021.
In March, Rivian announced that the downsized R2 SUV will also be built, at least initially, in Normal, putting plans for a $5 billion Georgia plant on hold. The first R2s are expected to roll off the line in 2026, with grading for the Normal plant expansion already underway, the automaker said Thursday.
Last year, Rivian produced 57,232 vehicles. In October, the EV automaker cut its forecast for 2024 by up to 18% to between 47,000 to 49,000 vehicles, blaming a shortage of copper windings used to make its electric motors for production disruption.
The automaker reiterated its lowered production guidance for the year during an earnings call Thursday, reporting 13,157 vehicles built and 10,018 delivered during the third quarter. Rivian generated $874 million in revenue for the quarter, down nearly 25% from the second quarter because of the production disruption and reduced vehicle delivery.
“This has been a tough quarter for us because of some of those supply chain, supply ramp challenges, and one of those suppliers in particular has limited our production quite substantially,” Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe said during the earnings call. “And we’re working very, very hard to address that.”
Rivian, which sells its vehicles direct-to-consumer online, launched its first retail space in Venice Beach, California, in October 2021. Unlike traditional auto showrooms, the Rivian stores are a place to experience, not directly purchase, the vehicles.
But the retail showrooms are an increasingly important catalyst for sales, Caravano said.
Paris-based Westfield owns 15 shopping centers across the U.S., including Old Orchard, its only Chicago-area location and the first to house a Rivian showroom.
The choice of Westfield Old Orchard for the second Chicago location marries a startup EV manufacturer with a legacy shopping center undergoing a dramatic renovation that will demolish its former Bloomingdale’s anchor store and transform it into a residential complex. The $100 million, two-phase redevelopment, which was tentatively approved by the Skokie Village Board last month, calls for up to three high-rise buildings and a public park to supplant the former department store.
Bloomingdale’s closed its 200,000-square-foot big-box store at the northwest corner of Old Orchard in 2022, opting for a downsized Bloomie’s store in the shopping center. Demolition of the department store is expected to begin late next year, with the first phase of the redevelopment — two mixed-use buildings with 425 apartments — slated to open by early 2028.
“This really adds to making Westfield a place where you live, you shop, you play, all of the above,” said Maegan Akers, who was named general manager of Westfield Old Orchard in June. “We’re going to have people living in our shopping center in the near future, which is very exciting.”
Final approval for the redevelopment project is expected at the Skokie Village Board meeting on Nov. 18.
Akers said the Rivian store dovetails with the broader transformation of the 68-year-old Old Orchard, bringing in an experiential tenant that is “not typically what you would see in a shopping center.”
Terms of the lease were not disclosed, but Rivian said the Old Orchard location is not a pop-up store, with a multiyear agreement to park its EVs in the heart of an upscale retail center whose other tenants include everything from Brooks Brothers to Sephora.
On Oct. 25, Rivian rolled into the storefront formerly occupied by women’s clothing retailer Aritzia, which shifted to a larger space a few doors down. The soft opening has generated some buzz at the unusual retail location, which has just enough space for two EVs in the showroom, with a half-dozen EVs parked in the nearby garage for test drives, Leppink said.
A few shoppers have already taken the plunge, beginning the online purchase process for the $70,000 EVs onsite, he said.
Last week, visitors trickled in on a weekday afternoon during the soft opening, promptly greeted by reps in Rivian-emblazoned outdoorsy jackets, ready to answer questions or pop open the frunk (trunk in the front) of a second-generation, gray tri-motor R1S SUV.
In the back of the small showroom, a blue dual-motor R1T pickup sat parked with a mountain bike atop the roof rack, its headlights glowing in repose.
A cozy lounge area in the middle of the store featured an inviting couch and chairs, the coffee table covered with oversized travel books. A rack of Rivian merchandise and apparel were on display, for those who wanted to buy a smaller piece of the startup brand.
The official grand opening weekend will feature a few special events, including a terrarium-building workshop Friday and a mobile golf simulator Saturday.
Getting people to stop at the Rivian space, whether they wander in on their way to Victoria’s Secret or actually plan to visit, is half the battle to winning new customers, Caravano said.
“Some people still need to touch the vehicle,” Caravano said. “And once you see our vehicles … and then get behind the wheel of the R1S or the R1T, the performance of the vehicle really does a whole lot of the work for us.”
The Rivian Old Orchard showroom is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and closed on Sundays.
