Barnes & Noble Inc., a company that operates 820 book stores in the US, said Friday that it will be closing a store in Chestnut Hill at the end of the year.

“The lease at the Chestnut Hill store is expiring at end of January 2014, and the store will be closing at the end of December, 2013,’’ David Deason, vice president of development for Barnes & Noble, said in an e-mailed statement. “We worked to have the lease extended but were unable to come to an acceptable agreement with the landlord. This is the only Boston metro-area store that is closing. We will continue to serve our customers at the nearby Prudential Center store and the many other Boston metro-area Barnes & Noble locations.’’


New York-bassed Barnes & Noble has been struggling in recent years, in part because of intense competition from Amazon.com. In August, Barnes & Noble said that first quarter sales for the retail segment of its business, which includes its brick-and-mortar stores, were down 9.9 percent from the same period the previous year.