The retail bleeding continues at Chapel Hill Mall.
The Akron mall is losing three of its better-known stores in addition to one of its anchors, Macy’s.
The Old Navy clothing store will close Jan. 26, according to a sign in its window.
And the struggling mall will soon lose its Express and Aeropostale clothing stores as well, said an employee who declined to be identified. Closing dates for those stores were not available.
Efforts to reach store managers and mall management were unsuccessful.
The Macy’s store, one of three anchors at Chapel Hill Mall along with Sears and JCPenney, will close in eight to 12 weeks as part of a $400 million cost-cutting move by its parent company. Macy’s announced the closure on Wednesday; the Chapel Hill store is one of 36 nationwide that will be shuttered.
The Old Navy store is the second largest non-anchor at the mall, after the Shoe Dept. Encore store.
Old Navy is owned by Gap Inc., while Express is owned by Columbus-based Express Inc. Aeropostale is based in New York.
The three retailers have reported mixed financial results recently.
Aeropostale in December reported it lost $26.4 million on sales of $363.3 million for its third quarter ending Oct. 31. The company also disclosed last year that it was in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange because its market capitalization had fallen below minimum listing requirements.
Gap on Thursday reported that five-week sales through Jan. 2 fell 4 percent to $2.01 billion from the same five-week period a year ago. Old Navy global sales in December fell 7 percent from a year ago.
Express Inc. in December reported strong third quarter sales and expected to end its fiscal year with higher earnings than in 2014.
Chapel Hill Mall, the Akron area’s secondary mall, has been struggling financially. It was in foreclosure proceedings in 2014 and is now run by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based McKinley Inc. on behalf of trustee U.S. Bank.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ.