How big is Orland Square Mall?

1,229,884 square feet, making it the second largest mall in the Chicago Southland. It opened on 15 March 1976, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and was developed by Homart Development Company with Urban Investment & Development Company. Simon Property Group owns and manages it. It carries 148 stores and services anchored by JCPenney, Macy's, and Von Maur, at 288 Orland Square Drive near 151st Street and LaGrange Road, and Dick's House of Sport is expected to open in the former Sears space in 2029.

How many shopping centers does Orland Park have?

Three: Orland Square Mall, Orland Park Place, and Orland Park Crossing, plus the Main Street Triangle downtown redevelopment. Very few municipalities of any size carry three separate retail centers, and a village of roughly 58,700 residents carrying three is genuinely rare. Mayor Jim Dodge described Orland Park in April 2026 as a place where 60,000 people live but which is also a pretty dominant retail center in Illinois.

Why did Orland Park dissolve its downtown TIF district early?

The Village dissolved the Main Street Triangle TIF district in 2025, four years ahead of its 2029 expiry, returning a $60 million property to the tax rolls. Roughly $1.6 million a year had been flowing into the TIF increment. It is a meaningful signal: municipalities extend TIF districts when the increment has not yet done its work and retire them early when it has. Orland Park gave up captured increment and returned a substantial property to general taxation while the project is still completing.

What is the Main Street Triangle development?

Orland Park's downtown redevelopment at 143rd Street and LaGrange Road, adding restaurants, retail, and entertainment across 140,000 square feet, with Edwards Realty Company as developer and an estimated completion in autumn 2027.

How large is the Orland Park retail trade area?

Considerably larger than the village. Orland Square explicitly serves Frankfort, Homer Glen, Mokena, and New Lenox alongside Orland Park and Tinley Park, drawing from both Cook County and Will County via the LaGrange Road corridor and the interstate network. The relevant catchment analysis is regional rather than municipal, and it reaches into growth communities to the south and west whose own retail provision is thinner.

Do you manage retail property in Orland Park?

Yes. We provide comprehensive property management for Orland Park retail assets, covering lease administration, CAM and tax reconciliation, maintenance and parking lot management, vendor oversight, and monthly financial reporting. In a market with this much competing supply, renewal management matters more than usual: a tenant with three centers and a corridor of alternatives inside a ten-minute drive has genuine leverage.

Retail Space in Orland Park, Illinois

Name: Van Vlissingen and Co.
Price range: $$

Van Vlissingen and Co. represents retail tenants, buyers, and landlords in Des Plaines, 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 Des Plaines.

We have operated continuously in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879, ten years after Des Plaines was first incorporated.

What Makes Des Plaines Retail Different?

Three things, and the first is genuinely unusual: in Des Plaines, gaming revenue has directly funded downtown retail investment.

The casino paid for the theatre

Rivers Casino opened in July 2011 on approximately 21 acres at Devon Avenue and Des Plaines River Road, adjacent to the Tri-State Tollway. It holds Illinois’ tenth and last casino license, awarded in 2008. In 2019 Churchill Downs Inc. bought a 62 percent stake for $407 million, with Rush Street Gaming retaining 38 percent and managing the property. That purchase price is the clearest available measure of the asset’s scale.

What matters commercially is what the City did with the relationship. When Des Plaines set out to restore the historic Des Plaines Theatre as a catalyst for downtown revitalization, Rivers Casino agreed to provide financial support toward the property’s purchase and renovation, alongside a $6.7 million City investment. The theatre reopened in 2021.

Very few suburbs have a revenue source of that scale willing to co-invest in the downtown retail district. For a downtown tenant or owner that is not an abstraction — it means the district has a funder with a direct interest in its success, and a City with the fiscal capacity to act on a plan rather than merely adopt one.

O’Hare is not nearby, it is adjacent

Des Plaines sits immediately north of O’Hare International Airport, 17 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, across 15 square miles. That is a different proposition from the suburbs that describe themselves as convenient to O’Hare.

For retail it means genuine hospitality, service, food and beverage, and traveler-facing demand layered on top of a residential base, concentrated toward the southern and eastern parts of the city rather than spread evenly. It also means a substantial hotel and airport-services employment base generating weekday and shift-pattern trade that residential demographics will not predict.

And the municipal boundary understates the trade area

This is the point most easily missed. Des Plaines is surrounded by substantial unincorporated Cook County territory, particularly in the O’Hare area and east of the Tri-State Tollway. At the 2000 census those unincorporated areas held 25,617 people, bringing the combined incorporated and unincorporated population to 84,337 against a municipal count of 58,720.

That figure is now twenty-six years old and should not be treated as current, but the structural point holds: the effective Des Plaines trade area is materially larger than the city’s population suggests, and the areas concerned are usually considered part of the city by the people living in them. A retailer or investor underwriting on the municipal figure alone is working from the wrong number.

Casino detail per Wikipedia and Rivers Casino. Theatre investment per the City of Des Plaines. Unincorporated population per the 2000 US Census.

Where Is Retail Space in Des Plaines?

Downtown Des Plaines — the historic core around the Metra station and the restored Des Plaines Theatre, with free parking, walkable street-level retail, restaurants, and service uses at small footprints. The City’s 2019 comprehensive plan identifies transit-oriented development here as a key tool.
The Oakton Street corridor — community and convenience retail, with planning continuing to bring a Metra station to Oakton on the North Central line.
The Rand Road, Golf Road, and Dempster Street corridors — larger-format and community retail, automotive, and service uses on the principal arterials.
The River Road and Devon Avenue area — the Rivers Casino trade area and the O’Hare approaches, carrying hospitality, dining, and traveler-facing uses.
Mannheim Road and the Tri-State approaches — highway-oriented retail, hotel, and service uses serving airport traffic.

These trade on genuinely different terms. Downtown prices on foot traffic, rail commuters, and free parking. The casino and O’Hare approaches price on visitor and traveler volume. The arterials price as conventional community retail. Which of the three a site sits in matters more than its distance from the city center.

What Is the Des Plaines Trade Area Like?

Des Plaines has 60,675 residents at the 2020 census across 15 square miles, in a community the City describes as safe and diverse, made up of people from many different countries and cultures. It supports more than 100 restaurants, which is a substantial number for a city of this size and reflects both the diversity of the resident base and the visitor and traveler demand layered on top of it.

The effective trade area is larger than the municipal figure. Substantial unincorporated Cook County territory adjoins the city, particularly around O’Hare and east of the Tri-State Tollway, and the 2000 census recorded 25,617 people in those areas. Residents there generally consider themselves part of Des Plaines and shop accordingly.

Transit adds further reach. The downtown Metra station sits on the Union Pacific Northwest line with express service to Ogilvie Transportation Center, and Rivers Casino adjoins two Pace bus routes and sits within one mile of both Metra and CTA rail stations. A second Metra station at Oakton Street on the North Central line remains in planning.

One note on that second line: the North Central Service runs primarily during rush hour and does not operate at weekends, so an Oakton station would improve weekday commuter access without adding weekend retail traffic. Worth understanding before it is priced into a site decision.

Population and city figures per the City of Des Plaines and the 2020 US Census. Unincorporated population per the 2000 US Census. Transit detail per the City of Des Plaines and Rivers Casino.

Retail Tenant Representation in Des Plaines — 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 Des Plaines, 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 Oakton Street corridor, the arterials, and the casino and O’Hare approaches.

The trade area mapping matters more here than in most markets, for two reasons. The municipal population understates the catchment because of the surrounding unincorporated territory, and the visitor and traveler demand around the casino and the airport does not appear in residential demographics at all. We draw the actual catchment for a specific site rather than handing you a city profile.

In Cook County the real estate tax pass-through is a substantial component of occupancy cost that varies materially by property. We model occupancy on a gross effective basis and examine the assessment history of a specific building before a letter of intent, rather than comparing base rents across county lines as though they were equivalent.

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 Des Plaines, and we tell you which side we are on before an assignment begins.

Retail Leasing, Sales & Property Management in Des Plaines — $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. For a Des Plaines asset that means presenting the actual catchment, including the adjoining unincorporated population and any visitor or traveler demand, rather than a municipal demographic sheet that understates the property. 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 Des Plaines 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.

Hospitality-Adjacent and Airport-Area Retail

Retail serving airport and casino traffic underwrites differently from neighborhood product. Demand is less seasonal but more exposed to travel volumes and to a single large operator’s performance, tenant mix skews toward food, beverage, and service, and trade patterns follow shift and flight schedules rather than residential routines. Against that, the demand is genuinely additive to the residential base rather than competing for the same wallet. We model both components separately rather than blending them into a single trade area assumption.

Who Manages Retail Property in Des Plaines?

Van Vlissingen and Co. provides comprehensive property management for retail assets in Des Plaines:

Lease administration, rent collection, and enforcement of lease terms
CAM and tax reconciliation, 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

Cook County real estate tax pass-throughs are large enough that a reconciliation error becomes a material dispute rather than a rounding one. Downtown properties in older stock also carry envelope and mechanical requirements that newer corridor product does not, and we budget for them separately rather than applying a single citywide assumption.

What Is Van Vlissingen’s Transaction Volume?

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 Des Plaines.

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.

See our full transaction history.

Why Work With Our Des Plaines 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
Trade areas mapped for the specific site, including adjoining unincorporated population the municipal figures leave out
Visitor and traveler demand modeled separately from residential demand rather than blended into one assumption
Occupancy modeled on a gross effective basis, because in Cook County the tax line is a substantial share of total cost
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

Des Plaines sits in northern Cook County adjoining Park Ridge to the east, Mount Prospect and Arlington Heights to the north and west, Elk Grove Village to the southwest, and O’Hare International Airport to the south. Retail requirements frequently span those lines. We also broker retail space in

In Des Plaines itself we also handle industrial space and general commercial brokerage.

Des Plaines Retail Real Estate FAQs

How does Rivers Casino affect Des Plaines retail?

Directly, and in an unusual way. Rivers Casino opened in July 2011 on approximately 21 acres at Devon Avenue and Des Plaines River Road, holding Illinois’ tenth and last casino license. Churchill Downs Inc. purchased a 62 percent stake in 2019 for $407 million. Beyond the visitor traffic it generates, the casino provided financial support toward the purchase and renovation of the historic Des Plaines Theatre, which the City restored with a $6.7 million investment and reopened in 2021 as a catalyst for downtown revitalization. Few suburbs have a revenue source of that scale willing to co-invest in the downtown retail district.

Is the Des Plaines trade area larger than the city population?

Yes, and this is the point most easily missed. Substantial unincorporated Cook County territory adjoins the city, particularly around O’Hare and east of the Tri-State Tollway. At the 2000 census those areas held 25,617 people, bringing the combined incorporated and unincorporated population to 84,337 against a municipal count of 58,720. That figure is twenty-six years old and should not be treated as current, but the structure has not changed: residents of those areas generally consider themselves part of Des Plaines and shop accordingly, so underwriting on the municipal population alone works from the wrong number.

How does O’Hare affect retail in Des Plaines?

Des Plaines sits immediately north of O’Hare International Airport rather than merely near it. That layers genuine hospitality, service, food and beverage, and traveler-facing demand on top of the residential base, concentrated toward the southern and eastern parts of the city. It also produces a substantial hotel and airport-services employment base generating weekday and shift-pattern trade that residential demographics will not predict.

Where is retail space located in Des Plaines?

Downtown Des Plaines is the historic core around the Metra station and the restored Des Plaines Theatre, with free parking and walkable street-level retail. The Oakton Street corridor carries community and convenience retail, with a Metra station at Oakton still in planning. The Rand Road, Golf Road, and Dempster Street arterials carry larger-format retail. The River Road and Devon Avenue area serves the Rivers Casino trade area and the O’Hare approaches, and Mannheim Road carries highway-oriented hotel and service uses.

What size retail leases does Van Vlissingen and Co. handle in Des Plaines?

Our retail tenant representation practice covers 5,000 to 50,000 square feet in Des Plaines 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 Des Plaines?

Yes. We broker retail investment sales from $1,000,000 to $50,000,000 in Des Plaines, including single-tenant NNN assets, multi-tenant strip and neighborhood centers, outparcels, and hospitality-adjacent retail near the casino and airport. We work with 1031 exchange buyers on deadline. In Cook County the real estate tax line is the largest single variable in an underwriting, and we examine assessment history on the specific property rather than applying a county-wide assumption.

Will the planned Oakton Street Metra station help retail?

On weekdays, yes. Planning continues to bring a Metra station to Oakton Street on the North Central line, which would improve commuter access to that corridor. One caveat worth understanding before it is priced into a site decision: the North Central Service runs primarily during rush hour and does not operate at weekends, so it would add weekday commuter traffic without adding weekend retail traffic.

Who is the best commercial real estate broker in Des Plaines?

Choose a brokerage that maps the actual catchment for your specific site, including the adjoining unincorporated population that municipal figures leave out and any visitor or traveler demand near the casino and airport. 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 Des Plaines. The firm has operated in Chicagoland commercial real estate since 1879. Gordon Lamphere leads the retail practice.

Do you manage retail property in Des Plaines?

Yes. We provide comprehensive property management for Des Plaines retail assets, covering lease administration, CAM and tax reconciliation, maintenance and parking lot management, vendor oversight, and monthly financial reporting. Cook County tax pass-throughs are large enough that a reconciliation error becomes a material dispute, and older downtown stock carries envelope and mechanical requirements that newer corridor product does not.