Dick's House of Sport at The Gardens Mall: What It Means for Palm Beach Gardens Home Values and Seller Timing

On August 6, 2026, the Palm Beach Gardens City Council voted 5 to 0 in the first reading to approve Dick's House of Sport at the former Sears site inside The Gardens Mall. The final reading is scheduled for September 10. Based on how the council spoke to the project, final approval looks like a formality.

For owners near the PGA Boulevard corridor and across Palm Beach Gardens, the substance of the vote matters more than the headline. This is the largest change to The Gardens Mall since it opened in 1988, and the physical shape of it will do things to demand that a normal anchor swap would not.

What was actually approved

A 140,000 square foot two story Dick's House of Sport in the space Sears left vacant in early 2024. About 47,000 square feet of additional retail attached to the redevelopment. And an 18,000 square foot outdoor turf field on the east side of the property, described in city filings as the first outdoor sports field at any South Florida mall. Construction is planned to start in 2027 with an opening targeted for spring 2028.

The store footprint is the same size as the Nordstrom on the opposite end of the mall, so this is a full weight anchor, not a filler tenant. The field is the piece most sellers are underweighting. Dick's uses these outdoor fields to host youth clinics, camps, birthday events, and demo days. That kind of programming pulls families into the property on evenings and weekends year round, which is a very different demand signal than a traditional department store closing at 8pm.

Why the anchor effect is real, and why it is uneven

Anchor projects at premium malls tend to lift nearby residential demand in two ways. They pull in a bigger buyer pool from further out, and they raise the story a listing agent gets to tell about the neighborhood. The Gardens Mall already does this. Adding an experiential anchor with a permanent outdoor programming space extends the story.

The lift is not uniform. Properties with a shorter drive to PGA Boulevard, easier access off Military Trail or Alternate A1A, or a real school and lifestyle overlap with buyers who want to be near the mall will feel the strongest pull. Properties farther from the corridor still benefit from Palm Beach Gardens' overall reputation, but the marginal bump from this specific project fades with distance.

The seller timing window most owners miss

There is a window right now where the story sells the anticipation. The vote is public, the plans are public, and buyers who follow this market know what is coming. That is the cleanest time to list, because the upside is priced in as excitement instead of as construction chaos.

Once construction starts in 2027, the calculus flips. Visible site work, closed parking, detours, and cranes are not what a buyer wants to see on the drive to a showing. Sellers who list during active construction usually end up either pricing in a discount or waiting out the disruption anyway. That is the part of the cycle you want to avoid unless you have to move.

Then the window reopens in 2028 when the store and field are actually operating. At that point you are selling a home next to a functional lifestyle destination with real foot traffic, and the anchor effect shows up in comparable sales instead of in a pitch deck. That is a strong environment to sell in, but you are giving up two years of appreciation and holding costs to get there.

Two scenarios that cover most owners

The first scenario is the owner who wants to sell in the next 12 months regardless. Your best move is to list into the anticipation window, before ground breaks. Price to the current market, let the project be part of the narrative, and close before disruption becomes the story a buyer sees at the curb.

The second scenario is the owner who is flexible on timing and would rather sell into a stronger absolute number. Holding through construction and listing after opening is a defensible play if your carrying costs are manageable and your property is close enough to the mall to actually capture the anchor lift. This is not a blanket recommendation. It only pencils out for a subset of properties, and it requires you to accept two years of market risk that has nothing to do with Dick's.

The wrong move is listing halfway through construction with no plan for how to handle the visual noise around the property. That is where sellers give up money that the project was supposed to add.

What to evaluate before you decide

Distance and drive experience to The Gardens Mall. School district and buyer overlap with the families this project attracts. Your carrying cost tolerance over a two year hold. And the current absorption rate in your price band, which is a bigger factor in your outcome than any single anchor project.

Every property has different exposure to this. A CMA that treats your home as a specific address inside a specific submarket is worth more than any general read on Palm Beach Gardens right now. That is the input that turns this project from a headline into a decision.

Kyle Camerlinck | Taiter Realty, Jupiter FL Luxury Real Estate