Macy's department store at Sandusky Mall shutting down

SANDUSKY — The Macy's department store at Sandusky Mall will shut down by the end of the year, Macy's announced Wednesday, a big blow to a mall that already has seen the closing of a Sears anchor store.The closing in Sandusky is part of Macy's plan to close about 100 stores across the U.S.Macy's said the company's Sandusky store has 61 employees. The 133,000-square-foot store opened in 1979, Macy's said.Employees at the Sandusky Macy's store were told Wednesday afternoon that the store would be shut down.The Cafaro Company, which is based in Youngstown and owns Sandusky Mall, also confirmed the announcement."We understand they will begin closing stores pretty soon," Cafaro spokesman Joe Bell. The store is expected to shut down around early spring or late March, Bell said.Macy's said it is closing two other Ohio stores, one in Columbus and one in Steubenville.Bell said the company is still looking for a tenant for the Sears store that shut down at the mall last year.Bell said replacing an anchor store is a complex task that takes time."I don't want to characterize exactly where things are just now," he said.He said Cafaro is getting inquiries from other retailers. It's not clear whether the Sears space will be occupied by one big retailer or whether it will be subdivided among other stores.Macy's said it announced the closing of 68 stores Thursday, part of a plan announced in August to close about 100 stores.Bell noted that the Macy's situation is different from Sears. Sears has been losing money for a long time and is in dire shape, while Macy's was still turning a profit in many of the stores it is shutting down."These are stores that are making money," Bell said.Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren said that the Macy's announcement fits into the broader of trend to balance in store sales with website sales."Our omnichannel strategies continue to evolve based on the changes in our customers' shopping behaviors, including a focus on buy online, pickup in store and mobile-enabled shopping," Lundgren said.The announcement by Macy's raises questions about the future of Sandusky Mall.Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle, writing about Sears in a Dec. 9 column, opined, "The malls that Sears anchored for decades now seem to be slowly dying. They, like Sears itself, are suffering from online competition."Bell said the mall still has two anchor stores, J.C. Penney and Elder Beerman.He said the claim that malls are declining has been made for a long time."I've been reading those stories, too, for the past 20 years," he said. "The prediction of the death of malls has been going around for many years.""That's something we have dealt with," he said. "It's an unfortunate narrative people have latched onto."Macy's says is currently has 730 stores.Shoppers walk toward Macy's at the Sandusky Mall on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2017. Macy's will be closing by the end of the year.