Orland Park officials are studying the potential creation of a tax increment financing district as an incentive tool for filling the long-vacant Sears store at Orland Square shopping center.

Trustees passed a resolution Monday to allow TIF funds to be used to redevelop the space, at the southeast corner of the mall. TIF money can be used to pay for public improvements as well as incentives for developers.

Village officials said Dick’s Sporting Goods would bring its new concept store, House of Sports, to the Sears space.

Dick’s now has a store in the village, in the Orland Park Place shopping center on La Grange Road south of the mall, which would be closed, said Mayor Keith Pekau.

He said filling the space Dick’s would vacate at Park Place would be easier than finding a tenant to take all of the Sears store, which is a bit more than 200,000 square feet.

“I believe filling Sears is extremely difficult,” Pekau said.

House of Sports stores include features such as a climbing wall, multiple golf bays and multisport cages that can be used for baseball, softball, lacrosse and soccer and give athletes an opportunity to try products while measuring and tracking their performance, according to Dick’s.

A representative for the retailer did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

“This is a new concept for them,” Pekau said. “It’s much bigger, more experiential.”

He said in other malls where Dick’s has located House of Sports stores, mall traffic increased by 30%.

“Everyone should be excited about this,” Pekau said. “I think it will be a great addition.”

If plans were to move forward, the mayor said this would be the first House of Sports in the Chicago area.

The board agreed to spend up to $30,000 for adviser SB Friedman to study whether the property, including the adjacent large parking lot, qualifies as a TIF.

Factors such as blighted conditions, including declining property values, are considered in determining whether a property or multiple properties qualify as a TIF under Illinois law.

Pekau said there is a “high likelihood” the Sears property will be a TIF.

“It’s blighted,” he said.

The store, which was an anchor since the mall opened in 1976, closed in spring 2018.

Along with being able to use a TIF as an inducement to development, the village wants to use it to create stormwater storage capacity at the mall.

Pekau said the parking lot is far too large for a new retail use, and said the mall has no capacity available for handling stormwater runoff. That has also affected the development of other properties along the perimeter road surrounding the mall, according to the village.

Trustee Bill Healy said, apart from a TIF, he wanted to see SB Friedman look at “all avenues of incentives” to spur redevelopment of the Sears space.

Pekau said there is “really no other funding source available to us,” and that a new tenant could not be asked to shoulder the cost of what the mayor said could be a detention pond using part of the Sears parking lot.

“This is a village need,” he said.

Pekau said he understands Dick’s would take both levels of the Sears store.

He said that hiring SB Friedman and approving the TIF resolution doesn’t necessarily commit the village to creating a TIF, which would be a long process involving public hearings and board approval.

In announcing fourth- quarter and full-year earnings this month, Pittsburgh-based Dick’s said it had opened seven House of Sports locations in 2024 and planned to open 16 more this year.

For the year ended Jan. 31, Dick’s reported revenues of $13.4 billion, up 3.5% from 2023.

House of Sports locations are larger than the typical Dick’s store, running between 120,000 and 140,000 square feet compared with about 50,000 square feet for other stores.

While Orland Square itself is owned and operated by Simon Property Group, the Sears property was owned separately, most recently by Seritage Growth Properties.

Seritage acquired 235 Sears and Kmart locations in July 2015 from Sears Holdings, including the Orland Square site.

In the fall of 2017, Seritage announced plans to develop a 10-screen 45,000-square-foot AMC Theatre along with retailers and restaurant tenants on the upper level of the Sears space, with their main entrances facing out toward the parking lot, with Sears consolidating store operations in the lower level.

That came before the announcement of the store’s closing, and theater plans never came to fruition, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seritage then, in 2022, hired a real estate broker to market the Sears site.

A sale was apparently secured in 2023, to California-based Cubework, which announced plans to convert the store into a “co-working mall.”

Plans were to rent kiosks and pop-up spaces to small businesses, offering short-term leases.