Another wave of store closures is expected to hit shopping centers and malls this year with "no light at the end of the tunnel," according to a new research report.

Retailers have already announced 2,187 new store closures since Jan. 1, including Gymboree, J.C. Penney, Charlotte Russe and Ann Taylor parent company Ascena Retail, according to Coresight Research. That's up 23 percent from the number of announcements documented at the same time last year, the market research group said. And there's "potentially many more on the way due to companies currently in the bankruptcy process and more on the horizon."

In 2018, Coresight tracked 5,524 store closure announcements in the U.S., which was down more than 30 percent from a record 8,139 closures announced in 2017. David Simon, CEO of the largest mall operator in the U.S., Simon Property Group, recently said the pace of store closures was slowing, but he expected more in 2019, with a handful of private equity-backed retailers on his so-called watch list.