PIQUA — The Sears located at the Miami Valley Centre Mall in Piqua will be closing, according to a new company statement released on Nov. 8, with an additional 40 stores expected to close.

“Liquidation sales at these stores are expected to begin late next week. The accompanying Sears Auto Store at these Sears stores will also be closing,” according to the company’s statement. “This is in addition to the previously announced closure of 142 unprofitable stores expected to be completed near the end of the year.”

The statement went on to say that these additional 40 locations, including the Sears in Piqua, are expected to close in February.

Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October. With almost 200 locations expected to close, there will be no Sears locations left in Ohio.

The Sears store at the Miami Valley Centre Mall, which is owned by Mid-America, opened in 1999.The closing did not come as a surprise to the mall, but they previously did not know when it would happen.

“We expected this would happen,” said WIlliam Staebler, director of retail development for Mid-America.

Mid-America has been searching for new tenants for the location of the former Elder-Beerman store, which closed its doors at the mall in August, and they have also been promoting Sears’ location as well. Staebler said that they do have some interest for those locations, but it is still “very preliminary.”

“We’re very disappointed,” Staebler said about Sears closing. He added Mid-America is still committed to the mall.

“These are very difficult times in retail,” Staebler said, although they hope to bounce back and fill those two spots. This is going to be the first time that the mall will have two anchor spots unfilled.

Sears began as a mail-order catalog in the 1880s. At its peak, the operator of Sears and Kmart had 4,000 stores in 2012, but will now be left with a few more than 500.