Lord & Taylor plans to fire 77 information technology employees while closing its downtown St. Louis office.

The cuts will happen between Jan. 31 and Aug. 31, the department store chain said in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice to the state of Missouri.

"I regret to inform you Lord & Taylor is closing its plant located at 500 North Broadway. ... This will be a permanent closing," Lori Jablczynski, legal counsel for Hudson's Bay Co., wrote in a letter obtained by the St. Louis Dispatch. "This closing affects all employees and positions in the facility, including management positions and non-management positions."

New York-based Lord & Taylor is a subsidiary of Hudson's Bay Co., which outsourced its North American IT systems maintenance functions as part of a cost-cutting initiative to save $16 million a year, the newspaper reported.

Hudson's Bay in 2012 planned to expand its IT operations by more than 130 jobs. The company approved for city and state tax breaks to expand the St. Louis office.

Hudson's Bay declined 27 percent in the past 12 months to about $16.37 a share at 3:30 p.m. in New York trading. It hit a 52-week low of $14.40 in June.