Dick’s Sporting Goods’ mission-driven outdoor specialty store has arrived.
The 50,000-square-foot Public Lands store carries outdoor and lifestyle apparel, footwear and equipment brands. It features a 30-foot rock wall, an in-store gear repair and rental department and specialized shops dedicated to outdoor activities such as biking, camping, fishing, paddling, skiing, climbing, running and hiking.
The Pittsburgh-area store, formerly one of Dick’s Field & Stream locations, opened Aug. 26. A grand opening event is scheduled for Sept. 24. The company plans to reopen another former Field & Stream store under the new Public Lands name in Columbus, Ohio, this October.
“We see a real opportunity to reinvent the outdoor marketplace and we believe Public Lands can be a great growth vehicle for us while also supporting the local community through conservation-, access- and equity-based initiatives,” Lauren Hobart, Dick’s Sporting Goods’ president and CEO, told investors in a call late last month.
Dick’s framed its new Public Lands concept as a platform to help “more people get outside to explore and protect America’s public lands.” To this end, it has created The Public Lands Fund. An initiative of The Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation, the fund is designed to support local and national initiatives that “protect new lands, improve existing lands, break down the barriers of access to outdoor experiences and improve inclusion and equity in the outdoors.” As a member of 1% for the Planet, Public Lands will donate 1 percent of all gross sales to The Public Lands Fund.
So far, The Public Lands Funds has partnered with 10 environmental nonprofits, including Alleghany Land Trust, a land conservation group that helps locals save land in the greater Pittsburgh region; Friends of Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks, an organization dedicated to enhancing public use of parks; and the Alaska Wilderness League, which works to protect Alaska’s public lands by advocating in support biodiversity, wilderness, Indigenous communities and cleaner energy.
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“At Public Lands, our mission is to celebrate and protect public lands for all,” Todd Spaletto, president, Public Lands, said in a statement. “We want to do this in a meaningful way and partner with organizations that have already accomplished—and continue to do—incredible work to ensure our public lands and outdoor spaces are clean, preserved and open for all.”
On Wednesday, Dick’s Sporting Goods marked the grand opening of a new Going, Going, Gone! Location in Royal Palm Beach. Fla. The discount store offers deals on footwear and apparel from the same brands sold at Dick’s Sporting Goods stores. “Deep discounts” of up to 70 percent will be available year-round, the company said.
Together, the two store openings bring approximately 120 full-time, part-time and temporary jobs, Dick’s added.
As of July 31, the company was operating 731 Dick’s Sporting Goods locations, up from 726 a year earlier. Its total number of specialty concept stores was static year-over-year at 126.
Dick’s Public Lands brand is not its first specialty concept to debut this year. This spring, it opened its first two House of Sport locations in Victor, N.Y., and Knoxville, Tenn. Amenities at the Knoxville House of Sport store include a 24,000-square-foot outdoor turf field and running track, a rock-climbing wall, a batting cage, golf hitting bays, a putting green, a “House of Cleats” that will seasonally rotate product, a health and wellness destination to help customers with recovery and wellbeing and a consolidated service area for breaking in gloves, stringing lacrosse sticks, and building and repairing bikes.