JCPenney will close its store at Ross Park Mall in Allegheny County on Sept. 20, ending another long-running anchor presence at one of western Pennsylvania’s biggest shopping centers. The company said this week that it could not continue the lease terms for the location and could not find another suitable site in the market.

A spokesperson said JCPenney was grateful to its dedicated associates and loyal customers at the Pittsburgh, Pa., store and hopes to keep serving shoppers through its nearly 650 stores nationwide and at jcpenney.com. The Ross Park Mall location had already been reduced to one floor in 2019, a sign of the pressure facing the store before this latest decision.

Ross Park Mall is the sixth largest shopping mall in Pennsylvania and is owned by Simon Property Group. The closure adds to the list of changes at a property that remains important in the region, but has been buffeted by shifts in retail traffic and the long decline of some department store formats.

The store’s fate fits a larger pattern for JCPenney, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 disruption. The company was later bought in 2020 by Brookfield Property Partners and Simon Property Group, a deal that kept the brand alive but did not stop every store from being lost along the way.

What makes the Ross Park Mall closure stand out is how much of the story was already visible before the announcement. The store had shrunk to one floor five years ago, and the company is now saying it could not make the economics work under the current lease. For the mall, and for shoppers who built routines around the store, Sept. 20 is the final date that matters.