The McDonald’s on Highway 278 will be closed for several months starting Monday to make way for a new restaurant on the site.

Store owners said the job will take two to three months and is needed to provide a better facility for the city.

“The new building will have the new-style McDonald’s exterior that Highway 142 has, with a new playground,” said owner Lynn Miller. “McD’s is modernizing and updating its look and feel with more relevant buildings and colors and lobby decor packages.”

Reconstruction will take between 80 and 90 days, Miller said, and most of the current staff will be retained. However, she said they will be hiring and training new employees for the March opening. Those interested can apply at the three other Covington locations, on Highway 36, Highway 142 and Almon Road.

“It’s time we want to modernize and have a better store in the neighborhood,” store manager Brett Holbrook said.

Miller said her father, Bruce, who previously owned more than 2 0 McDonald’s restaurants in Florida, opened the Covington McDonald’s on Highway 278 in the mid-1970s. It was his second store in the area, after opening one on Old Klondike Road in Conyers in 1974. He worked with Miller’s mother Susan Vineyard Wahl, who trained staff and managers over the years.

The family has more than 50 years in with McDonald’s. “Bruce has 54 years in McDonald’s, starting as a teenager for his own father, just as I started with my father as a teenager, working in our Conyers and Covington stores through high school,” she said.

Miller said they are planning to host an open house to show residents the new store before it opens in March.