Macy’s Inc. announced Thursday it will close 66 underperforming stores, including two in the Twin Cities’ east metro.

The closures are part of an ongoing strategy the retailer calls “Bold New Chapter,” which it says will return the company to sustainable and profitable growth.

Closing in Minnesota are stores at Maplewood Mall and Burnsville Center.

“Closing any store is never easy, but as part of our Bold New Chapter strategy, we are closing underproductive Macy’s stores to allow us to focus our resources and prioritize investments in our goforward stores, where customers are already responding positively to better product offerings and elevated service,” Tony Spring, chairman and chief executive officer of New York-based Macy’s Inc. said in a statement.

Macy’s announced its Bold New Chapter strategy in February 2024, saying it would involve closing 150 underproductive stores over a three-year period.

Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the closures reflect declining consumer interest in department stores and will allow the company to focus its resources on stores it thinks have more potential to generate sufficient profit.

“The number of people who think of department stores as great places to buy things has gone down for at least a decade and is unlikely to go back up,” he said. “So chains like Macy’s have to prune lots of stores in order to feed the stores that still attract enough customers. Department store chains are in ‘save what you can’ mode.”

Ken Dalto, a retail and management consultant in Bingham Farms, said Macy’s is part of the disappearing middle tier in retail as people shop online with Amazon and at stores including Target, Walmart and Kohl’s.

Macy’s business model of operating in shopping centers is not sustainable, Dalto said. He expects all the Macy’s stores to eventually close.

“They’re in malls and they have huge overhead,” he said. “It’s the old department store concept.”

Dalto said baby boomers, who once flocked to department stores like Macy’s, no longer have the same shopping habits in their retirement.

“Traffic is down,” he said. “When you go into the store, you buy other things. When you order goods on the phone or on the computer, you don’t necessarily shop around. You buy that thing. The whole lure of retailing is get them in the store and they’ll start seeing other things. ‘Oh wow, I need that.’ … The electronic Amazon model has broken a lot of that. So therefore, a store like Macy’s, which still would like everyone to come into the store, they have too many stores. People don’t go in the store.”

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This story was originally reported by Detroit News.