Van Vlissingen and Co. represents retail tenants, buyers, and landlords in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Gordon Lamphere and our retail team focus on tenant representation from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet and leasing, sales, and property management from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000, including single-tenant NNN assets. Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume, including retail transactions in Arlington Heights.
We have operated continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879.
As Vice President of Sales & Leasing, Gordon Lamphere, J.D. leads Van Vlissingen and Co.’s retail brokerage team. Ranked Arlington Heights #1 commercial real estate broker for 2026 by multiple industry publications, with transaction activity independently verified through Crexi, Gordon and his team close 100+ transactions annually. His advice is regularly featured in local and national press, and he hosts The Real Finds Podcast, Chicagoland’s leading commercial real estate podcast.
What Is Happening at Arlington Park?
The 326-acre former Arlington Park racetrack, purchased by the Chicago Bears in 2023, is the largest single redevelopment question in the northwest suburbs, and every retail decision in Arlington Heights is now made partly in relation to it.
What has been proposed
Renderings released by the Bears, designed by Manica Architecture, show a 60,000-seat fixed-roof stadium anchoring a mixed-use district that would include roughly 1,150 multifamily housing units, two hotels totaling around 400 rooms, approximately 300,000 square feet of retail, and 200,000 square feet of office space. The team has sought $855 million in public funding toward infrastructure.
Where it actually stands
This is a proposal, not a certainty, and the Village is careful about saying so. The Megaprojects Bill, HB 910, was approved by the Illinois House of Representatives in April 2026 and requires further approvals. In a statement dated 1 June 2026, the Village described the site as remaining highly viable given its size, transportation access, and location, and stated that a robust traffic study identifying impacts and necessary mitigation, followed by the Village’s independent review, would be essential before any formal consideration of a redevelopment plan.
The site does carry genuine structural advantages independent of who develops it: 326 contiguous acres, a dedicated Metra station, and access to O’Hare, Interstate 90, and Route 53.
What a retail decision should actually do with this
Three things, and none of them is “wait and see.”
Do not underwrite the stadium. A retail asset in Arlington Heights should pencil on today’s trade area. If the district is built, that is upside; if it is not, you still own a viable property. Any broker pricing an asset on a stadium that has not cleared legislation is selling you a lottery ticket at par.
Do build optionality into the lease. If your site sits within the likely impact radius, construction-period access provisions, co-tenancy protections, and shorter initial terms with renewal options are worth more than a small rent concession. The phasing risk is real and it is negotiable now.
Do watch the 300,000 square feet. If the proposed district is built at that scale, it becomes a competitive set for existing Arlington Heights retail, not only a traffic generator. Whether that helps or hurts a given asset depends entirely on format and distance.
Site acreage, ownership, legislative status, and Village position from the Village of Arlington Heights. Program figures from published Bears renderings via Urbanize Chicago. Status current as of the date of this page; confirm before relying on it.
Where Is Retail Space in Arlington Heights?
- Downtown Arlington Heights — the transit-oriented core around the Metra station, anchored by Arlington Town Square at 21 South Evergreen Avenue, a retail and apartment development built during the downtown redevelopment boom on the former Arlington Theaters site. Street-level retail, restaurants, and service uses at small footprints.
- The Rand Road corridor — the village’s principal large-format retail spine, including Southpoint Shopping Center, Arlington Plaza, the Annex of Arlington, and Northpoint Shopping Mall.
- Arlington Gateway — at the southeast corner of Algonquin Road and Arlington Heights Road, an eight-story building with approximately 300 apartments over roughly 25,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. Construction completed as of 2026.
- Golf Road, Dundee Road, and Palatine Road — neighborhood and convenience retail serving residential Arlington Heights.
- The Arlington Park site — 326 acres, subject to the redevelopment discussion above.
These trade on entirely different terms. Downtown space is small, walkable, and priced on foot traffic and residential density. Rand Road is large-format and priced on vehicle counts and co-tenancy. A comparable set averaged across the village is useful to nobody.
One broker marketing package for Southpoint reports approximately 31,000 vehicles per day on Rand Road and more than 330,000 residents within a five-mile radius. Those figures are from a marketing source rather than a primary one and should be verified before use in an underwriting.
Can You Get a Tax Incentive on Arlington Heights Retail Property?
Often, and the effect is larger than most owners assume.
Arlington Heights sits in Cook County, where commercial property is ordinarily assessed at 25 percent of market value. Under the Cook County Class 7a and Class 7b incentives, qualifying commercial development is assessed at 10 percent for the first ten years, then 15 percent in year eleven and 20 percent in year twelve. Class 7a applies to projects with total development costs, excluding land, of $2 million or less; Class 7b applies above that threshold.
Over a twelve-year hold that is a substantial difference in net operating income, and at a given cap rate it flows straight through to value. Both classes require the property to sit in an area determined to be in need of commercial development, and require that the project would not be economically feasible without the incentive. A municipal resolution of support is part of the application, and the application must be filed before construction, substantial rehabilitation, or reoccupancy begins.
Cook County also requires annual affidavits from incentive holders, including attestations of compliance with the County’s Living Wage and Minimum Wage Ordinances. That is an ongoing obligation, not a one-time filing, and it should be accounted for when a property changes hands.
Eligibility should be assessed before a purchase price is agreed rather than after. We raise it at the underwriting stage.
Class 6b, 7a and 7b terms per the Cook County Assessor’s Office. Eligibility is determined case by case; confirm with counsel before relying on it.
Retail Tenant Representation in Arlington Heights — 5,000 to 50,000 SF
Our retail tenant representation practice covers the 5,000 to 50,000 square foot range: junior anchor space, inline shops in neighborhood and community centers, freestanding buildings, and outparcels.
For retailers entering or expanding in Arlington Heights, we run the full site selection process: trade area and demographic analysis, co-tenancy review, traffic and access assessment, and a survey of both listed and off-market availability across downtown, the Rand Road corridor, and the Golf Road and Palatine Road corridors. Where a site sits within the likely Arlington Park impact radius, we assess construction-period access and phasing exposure before the letter of intent, and negotiate for it rather than discovering it later.
We negotiate the LOI and the lease — tenant improvement allowances, exclusive use provisions, co-tenancy protections, and renewal and expansion options. We work both sides of the table in Arlington Heights, and we tell you which side we are on before an assignment begins.
Retail Leasing, Sales & Property Management in Arlington Heights — $1M to $50M
For owners and investors we handle retail leasing, investment sales, and property management from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000: single-tenant net lease assets, multi-tenant strip and neighborhood centers, outparcels, and mixed-use property with ground-floor retail.
Landlord Representation
We build and execute the leasing plan: merchandising strategy, rent positioning against comparables from deals we closed ourselves, marketing to the regional and national tenant base, prospect qualification, and negotiation through lease execution. We report activity honestly, including when the market is telling you something you did not want to hear.
NNN Investment Sales
Single-tenant triple net assets trade on tenant credit, remaining lease term, and rent escalations more than on real estate fundamentals, and pricing them correctly requires understanding all three. We represent buyers and sellers of NNN retail in Arlington Heights and across Cook County, including 1031 exchange buyers working against identification and closing deadlines. We underwrite against comparables from transactions we negotiated, not aggregated listing data.
Underwriting around Arlington Park
Speculative upside is not a cap rate. We will model a stadium-and-district scenario for you if you want to see it, clearly separated from the base case, but we will not price an asset on it. The base case has to stand on the trade area as it exists, with the district treated as optionality rather than as revenue.
Who Manages Retail Property in Arlington Heights?
Van Vlissingen and Co. provides comprehensive property management for retail assets in Arlington Heights:
- Lease administration, rent collection, and enforcement of lease terms
- CAM reconciliation and pass-through billing, prepared to withstand tenant audit
- Preventive and corrective maintenance, snow removal, and parking lot management
- Vendor selection, contract negotiation, and performance oversight
- Monthly financial reporting, annual budgeting, and capital planning
- Tenant relations, renewal coordination, and vacancy turnover
Increasingly the largest part of our management portfolio is third-party assignments. What owners are buying is the operating discipline we built running our own assets — 870 acres and more than 6 million square feet across three corporate parks we developed and still manage, held through multiple market cycles since the mid-1980s.
Why Work With Our Arlington Heights Retail Brokers?
- More than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and over $3 billion in team transaction volume
- A defined focus: 5,000 to 50,000 SF tenant representation and $1M to $50M leasing, sales, and management
- A base case that stands without the stadium, and a clearly separated upside case if you want to see it
- Working knowledge of Cook County Class 7A eligibility
- Direct owner relationships that surface off-market availability
- Comparables from deals we negotiated ourselves
- In-house property management, so ownership advice reflects operating reality
- A fourth-generation firm, continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879
Nearby Markets We Serve
Arlington Heights sits in northwest Cook County alongside Palatine, Mount Prospect, Buffalo Grove, Wheeling, Rolling Meadows, and Schaumburg. Retail requirements frequently span those lines. We also broker retail space in
In Arlington Heights itself we also handle office space, industrial space, and general commercial brokerage.
Arlington Heights Retail Real Estate FAQs
What is happening with the Arlington Park site?
The Chicago Bears purchased the 326-acre former Arlington Park racetrack in 2023. Published renderings show a proposed 60,000-seat fixed-roof stadium anchoring a mixed-use district with roughly 1,150 multifamily units, two hotels totaling around 400 rooms, approximately 300,000 square feet of retail, and 200,000 square feet of office space, with the team seeking $855 million in public funding toward infrastructure. This remains a proposal. The Megaprojects Bill, HB 910, was approved by the Illinois House in April 2026 and requires further approvals, and the Village stated on 1 June 2026 that a robust traffic study and its own independent review would be essential before any formal consideration of a redevelopment plan.
Should I underwrite Arlington Heights retail on the Bears stadium?
No. A retail asset in Arlington Heights should pencil on today’s trade area. If the district is built, that is upside; if it is not, you still own a viable property. We will model a stadium-and-district scenario separately if you want to see it, but we will not price an asset on a project that has not cleared legislation.
Where is retail space located in Arlington Heights?
Retail concentrates in the transit-oriented downtown around the Metra station, anchored by Arlington Town Square at 21 South Evergreen Avenue; along the Rand Road corridor, which includes Southpoint Shopping Center, Arlington Plaza, the Annex of Arlington, and Northpoint Shopping Mall; at Arlington Gateway, an eight-story building at Algonquin and Arlington Heights Roads with roughly 25,000 square feet of ground-floor retail completed in 2026; and in neighborhood centers along Golf Road, Dundee Road, and Palatine Road.
Can you get a tax incentive on retail property in Arlington Heights?
Often. Arlington Heights sits in Cook County, where commercial property is ordinarily assessed at 25 percent of market value. Under the Cook County Class 7A incentive, qualifying commercial development is assessed at 10 percent for five years with an option to extend, which flows directly through to net operating income and to value. Eligibility is determined case by case and should be confirmed with counsel.
What size retail leases does Van Vlissingen and Co. handle in Arlington Heights?
Our retail tenant representation practice covers 5,000 to 50,000 square feet in Arlington Heights and across Cook County. On the leasing, sales, and property management side we handle retail assets from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000, including single-tenant NNN.
Do you handle retail investment sales in Arlington Heights?
Yes. We broker retail investment sales from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000 in Arlington Heights, including single-tenant NNN assets, multi-tenant strip and neighborhood centers, and outparcels. We work with 1031 exchange buyers on deadline.
Who is the best commercial real estate broker in Arlington Heights?
Choose a brokerage with closed transactions in your specific trade area, not just regional coverage, and one that will tell you plainly what a speculative project should and should not do to your underwriting. Van Vlissingen and Co. performs more than 100 commercial real estate transactions annually, and our team has completed over $3 billion in transaction volume, including retail transactions in Arlington Heights. The firm has operated in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879. Gordon Lamphere leads the retail practice.
Do you manage retail property in Arlington Heights?
Yes. We provide comprehensive property management for Arlington Heights retail assets, covering lease administration, CAM reconciliation, maintenance and parking lot management, vendor oversight, and monthly financial reporting.
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