FARMVILLE — Belk executives announced this week an agreement to sell the Charlotte-based department store chain to Sycamore Partners, a New York private equity firm. The headquarters will remain in Charlotte, and Tim Belk will continue as CEO.

“Basically it will not change anything here,” Farmville’s Belk manager Denise Broxton-Freeman said. “Belk continues to be the CEO, and we’re still marketing the brand as ‘modern Southern style.’ We don’t expect it to have any effect on the way we do business in Farmville. We’ve been wanting to do more things with the store here, and hopefully this will afford us that opportunity.”

Belk was founded in Monroe, N.C., in 1888 by William Henry Belk. Over the years, the chain has expanded to 296 stores across 16 states, mostly in the Southeast.