Costa Mesa’s planning commission unanimously approved a redevelopment plan for a new Dick’s House of Sport at 2200 Harbor Blvd., clearing the conversion of the 90,458-square-foot building most recently occupied by At Home. The 7-0 vote also approved a height variance for portions of the project, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The variance increases the site’s allowable height from 30 feet to 50 feet, according to the Los Angeles Times. The additional height would accommodate a prominent entryway and a glass roof over an indoor rock-climbing wall, one of the format’s signature features. The entryway and climbing-wall structure would be set back from Harbor Boulevard and nearby College Avenue residences, respectively.
What’s Inside the New Store
The planned store would use Dick’s House of Sport’s experiential format rather than operate solely as a conventional sporting-goods showroom. Plans call for a golf green with simulators, sports cages and an indoor climbing wall, allowing customers to test equipment and use some of the store’s features before buying products. Dick’s launched the House of Sport concept in New York in 2021.
Don Alexander, vice president of Onyx Creative, represented the applicant at the commission meeting. He said House of Sport locations typically employ 81 to 109 people, compared with 34 to 55 at a standard Dick’s Sporting Goods store, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A Vacant Big-Box Finds New Life
The Harbor Boulevard site has sat empty since the former At Home store closed in 2025. At Home filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy that year and announced plans to close 26 stores nationwide by Sept. 30, 2025, leaving the Costa Mesa building among the vacancies now getting a second life as sporting-goods retail, per a report from the Los Angeles Times.
What the Site’s Traffic and Corridor Context Looks Like
The project would be added to a heavily traveled commercial area. According to Caltrans’ 2016 traffic-volume table, State Route 55 at Costa Mesa’s Harbor Boulevard location carried an annual average daily traffic of 87,800 vehicles in one direction and 71,700 in the other. The City of Costa Mesa’s General Plan Environmental Impact Report identifies Harbor Boulevard as the city’s primary commercial corridor, with vehicle-oriented uses, auto dealerships, neighborhood shopping centers, entertainment venues and some residential uses. The planned store would therefore reuse a large retail property within an established, mixed commercial corridor rather than introduce sporting-goods retail into a primarily residential setting…