The Gardens Mall's Old Sears Wing Is Being Rebuilt to Face PGA Boulevard

"Ultimately, the Forbes Parties' goal, as it has been for years, is to get rid of the Sears store and recapture/redevelop the Sears property itself." The line comes from a 2023 counterclaim filed by Sears' successor, Transform Operating Stores, in its lawsuit against the owners of The Gardens Mall. It was meant as an accusation. Three years later it reads as an accurate description of the plan.

On September 10, 2026, the Palm Beach Gardens City Council took up the second reading of the redevelopment of the former Sears anchor, and WPBF reported that the council voted to approve it. Most coverage has focused on the name of the new tenant, a DICK'S House of Sport. For anyone at Old Palm Golf Club, whose regular drive east on PGA Boulevard passes the mall just across I-95, the application matters more. It shows that the east end of the mall is being rebuilt to open outward, with its own entrances, its own storefront on PGA Boulevard and a lit outdoor field.

Why the building sat empty for so long

The east anchor wasn't stuck because nobody wanted it. DICK'S Sporting Goods first tried to move in back in 2011, and the fight over that attempt explains why the building now looks the way it does.

• 2011. Sears proposed subleasing its second floor to DICK'S. The mall owner, The Forbes Co., refused to sign off. The City Council then passed a resolution saying anchor tenants could not subdivide their space without approval from both Forbes and the city.
• 2014 and 2015. Sears sued Forbes for the right to bring in DICK'S and added the city to the suit the following year.
• June 2017. Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled the city resolution unconstitutional because it impaired Sears' contractual rights.
• 2019. Forbes declined to sign the paperwork needed for city approvals, and a second round of litigation began with Transform.
• Late February 2024. Sears closed and the parties settled the Circuit Court case. The city's outside counsel later told the council that the original Sears lease, which ran until 2058, had been extinguished.
• September 2024. A separate federal lawsuit that DICK'S had brought against Forbes settled after three days of trial. According to WLRN, the court record does not say whether the settlement required DICK'S to take the Sears site.

The 2058 date is the important one. For as long as the Sears lease stood, the tenant controlled the largest single building on the east end, and the owner had no way to redesign it. Once the lease was gone, Forbes could plan the space itself. The application that followed was filed by Gardens Venture LLC, which the narrative identifies as the mall's owner. Forbes signed it, and WLRN describes the applicant as a Forbes subsidiary. Forbes owns the mall together with Taubman Centers, which bought a 48.5% stake in 2019.

How the former Sears building is being divided

Sears had one building. The plan splits that footprint into four parts and takes the total past what it replaces. The figures below come from the owner's project narrative, which is dated June 27, 2025.

When it's finished, the mall's approved total would rise from 1,390,000 to 1,451,467 square feet. WLRN described the new store as roughly the size of the Nordstrom at the opposite end of the mall.

The new east end has its own doors

According to the narrative, the DICK'S House of Sport will have exterior entrances on the upper level of the south side and the lower level of the north side. The southern part of the new shop wing is expected to house Arhaus, with its own exterior entrance on the upper level facing south. WLRN places that space on the south side of the mall facing PGA Boulevard. The furniture retailer would be moving from its current spot near Bloomingdale's.

The signage requests point the same way. The application asks that all ground-floor tenants with exterior customer entrances, restaurants included, be allowed two exterior wall signs. Under the earlier conditions of approval, only anchors could have wall signs. It also asks to remove the requirement that the mall architect approve every modification in writing.

This continues a pattern the city has approved one tenant at a time for close to a decade. In January 2017, the council allowed Cooper's Hawk Winery and Restaurant to be built with an exterior wall sign. In May 2024, it approved exterior signs for Tap 42 Craft Kitchen and Bar and for Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar and Restaurant. Those were individual exceptions. The new rule would cover every ground-floor tenant with an outside entrance.

A lit field at the east edge

The 18,500-square-foot field sits at the far eastern end of the mall property. The application describes:

• A track and a turf field, open to the public from inside the store, with turf chosen with heat retention and reflection in mind
• A black steel fence up to 37 feet tall, light fixtures up to 40 feet tall, and one illuminated scoreboard 16 feet 2.5 inches high
• Six-foot steel bollards screened by a Podocarpus hedge, with Alexander palms spaced around the outside of the fence
• A shaded water station and benches under a structural awning

The application lists sports clinics, community games, birthday parties, summer camp, parents' night out, fitness classes and athlete appearances as likely uses. The owner's proposed outdoor-use standards would let the council set operating hours and would leave approval of live events to the city manager. Hours, transportation impacts, lighting and noise are among the listed review factors. Those standards were the owner's proposal. The final conditions in Resolution 30, 2026 are what actually govern the field, and their text was not available in the public reporting reviewed for this piece.

Inside the store, golf bays

The plans for the interior include rock-climbing walls, HitTrax batting cages, Trackman golf bays and virtual-reality sports. It also describes a staffing model that hires by department and includes dedicated equipment service technicians. A "party room" inside the store handles birthday gatherings, so not every event needs the field. At the time of the filing, DICK'S had opened 22 House of Sport stores, including one in Miami and one in Tampa.

For a household on a Raymond Floyd course, the golf bays are the one feature with an obvious use. They will be the closest retail club-fitting and launch-monitor setup to Old Palm's gates, and they will sit inside a store that also services equipment.

Parking and timing

The owner isn't adding parking. It asked the city to lower the required ratio from 4.5 to 4.0 spaces per 1,000 square feet. A July 2, 2025 parking study by Kimley-Horn counts 6,057 spaces on the site plan against 5,806 required at the new ratio, which leaves a surplus of 251. The narrative itself lists 6,067 spaces with a 262-space surplus, and WPTV reported that the project would reduce the number of spaces. None of the public materials reviewed here say how many stalls will physically be removed.

Timing is also open. The first reading passed unanimously on August 6, 2026. No vote count for the September 10 second reading has been published in the coverage reviewed. As of early October 2026, neither the local news reports nor the application gives a construction start date or an opening date.

So the approvals are in place and the parts are on paper: a two-story store, a fenced field with lights and a scoreboard, and an Arhaus storefront facing PGA Boulevard. What remains open is when construction starts, how many parking stalls the work removes, and which hours the council attached to the field in Resolution 30, 2026.

Changes along PGA Boulevard, from a new anchor to a lit field at the mall's east edge, shape daily routines in Old Palm and how buyers see the corridor around it. If you'd like a confidential view of how projects like this one are being weighed in Old Palm valuations, Wilson & Wilson Private Client can walk you through it. Speak with an Advisor.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.