New thrift store planned for Orland

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A Seattle-based chain of thrift stores, Savers Inc. plans to open in an Orland Park strip mall on 94th Avenue. | Larry Ruehl~Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 14, 2012 10:15AM

Savers Inc., which describes itself as the world’s biggest for-profit thrift retailer, plans a 28,000-square-foot store in Orland Park, not far from Orland Park Place shopping center.

The Seattle-based company would open in a strip center on the east side of 94th Avenue, between 159th Street and Wheeler Drive, according to Karie Friling, village director of development services.

Company representatives laid out site plans earlier this week for village planners, and the company’s plans are expected to be taken up at a meeting Monday of the village board’s development services and planning committee, she said.

Savers would locate at the south end of the strip mall, occupying space that formerly housed Season’s End and Teachers Delight stores. Charter Fitness and Pro-Time Billiards also are tenants in the shopping center.

A spokeswoman for Savers, Sara Gaugl, said Thursday she couldn’t comment about the company’s plans for Orland Park, such as when the store might open, because they are still being reviewed by the village.

The company opened its first store in the Chicago market in April, converting a former Circuit City in Downers Grove. It since has opened locations in Crystal Lake and Naperville.

At the time it opened its first Chicago-area store, Savers said it expected to add three or four stores in the Chicago market each year over the next five years.

“We do believe there are a lot of growth opportunities for us” in the Chicago area, Gaugl said.

With more than 280 stores in the U.S., Canada and Australia, the privately held company has done booming business thanks to other people’s castoffs. The company, founded more than 50 years ago, expected to close out 2011 with nearly $1 billion in sales.

Typically, Savers pays local charitable groups for clothing and household goods they collect, which are then resold in its stores. In the Chicago area, Savers has partnered with the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Chicago, Gaugl said.

She said Savers stores will usually carry about 100,000 different items, and that between 5,000 and 10,000 new items are added each day.

Savers is in a growth mode, and about a year ago bought 18 Unique Thrift stores in states including Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and New Jersey from Apogee Retail Inc., based in Minnesota.

An Apogee spokeswoman said Thursday that the company isn’t connected with a Crestwood company, Nandorf, that operates stores under the name Unique Thrift in the Chicago area as well as Indiana and Ohio. Nandorf also owns the Spree second-hand store on LaGrange Road in Orland Park.