Macy’s department store will permanently close its doors in March after 14 years at the Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Mall officials confirmed Monday that after 14 years at the Ohio Valley Mall, Macy’s department store will close its doors in March.

Joe Bell, spokesman for Cafaro Co., the mall’s parent company, said the store will permanently close by the end of March.

“It is unfortunate. Among the 20 stores Macy’s is closing this year, the Ohio Valley Mall location will be among them,” he said.

Macy’s was established in 1858 and has over 740 stores in the United States. The 104,000-square-foot mall location opened to the public in 2006.

The retailer closed eight stores last year, Bell said, and is set to close an additional 20 locations this year.

“We thought they were doing well,” he said.

Employees of the store were recently notified of the closing.

Bell said the mall will be accelerating its “talks” with other retailers in order to find a replacement for the soon-to-be empty space. He would not elaborate on potential replacements at this time.

“We see it as a part of the journey and we hope to find something to replace it,” he said.

Although the mall will soon lose an important staple, it has many new openings.

“We take this as an opportunity to re-design the store space. … We have been having a good week lately; Dunham’s just opened and is doing well, Boscov’s is doing great. There’s no reason why another retailer can’t survive here,” Bell said.

Chick-fil-A will open in early spring. The fast food restaurant is being built outside of the mall in the parking lot next to Longhorn Steakhouse. It will hold seating for 117 people and include a drive-thru lane.

Additionally, construction of the new Hampton Inn & Suites, located in a portion of the space where the former Kmart store resided. The other portion is home to the recently opened Dunham’s Sports store, which opened in late October.