When Ashley Plaza Mall in Charleston, South Carolina, was dedicated in 1972, its new corridors ran on a single level under skylights, lined with small shops.
Condon's, the department store from downtown, had doors right onto that concourse, and so did Edward's 5 & 10.
After the 1972 dedication, General Cinema opened a two-screen theater whose doors were inside the mall.
By the 1990s the corridors were gone. Ashley Landing, as the center came to be called, was an open shopping center again, its stores facing the parking lot.
It kept finding new uses. A taproom with a patio opened there in 2017, and by 2020 a children's theater school was teaching classes in its own studios.
In spring 2025 fences went up around the old Big Lots, and demolition began at the center that grew out of that skylit mall.
Condon's opens its first branch at the plaza
On April 16, 1964, J.M. Fields opened a discount store on a wedge of land in the West Ashley section of Charleston, South Carolina, where Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Old Towne Road pull apart.
A Pantry Pride supermarket opened next to it, and the pair made up Ashley Plaza.
Nothing about it was enclosed: the storefronts faced a parking lot, and shoppers walked in straight from their cars.
J.M. Fields had run its advertisement for the opening only the day before.
The location had two highways running past it and West Ashley's new subdivisions growing around it, with neighborhoods such as Charlestowne Estates reaching right up to its edge.
By 1968 a site plan had been drawn for Ashley Plaza Mall.
In 1970 Condon's built a one-story store of about 35,000 square feet to the northwest of the strip.
Until then the Charleston department store had traded only from its flagship at King and Warren streets downtown, and the West Ashley store became its first branch.
Skylights over a small enclosed mall
Skylights ran over the new corridors when Ashley Plaza Mall was dedicated on August 10, 1972.
The corridors stayed on a single level, lined with small shops, and they tied the older buildings to a new store on the far side: an Edward's 5 & 10, a Charleston-area chain whose Ashley Plaza store had opened by 1971.
The roof stopped short of the first tenants.
Edward's and Condon's had doors onto the indoor concourse, while J.M. Fields and Pantry Pride were still entered from the parking lot, the way they had been in 1964.
After the dedication, General Cinema added a two-screen theater, and moviegoers reached it from inside the mall.
Charleston was filling with malls at the same time.
Northwoods Mall had opened in North Charleston in June 1972, and Charles Towne Square followed in 1976.
On July 29, 1981, Citadel Mall opened two or three miles from Ashley Plaza with roughly 100 stores and larger department stores as its anchors.
By January 1983 the plaza's Woolco was closed, as F.W. Woolworth pulled out of the Woolco business across the United States.
The corridors go, the parking lot stays
By the 1990s the indoor corridors had been taken out, and the property was an ordinary open shopping center again, its stores entered from the parking lot.
Big Lots took over the old supermarket space. Publix traded from a freestanding store on the parking-lot side.
Condon's lease was not renewed, and its West Ashley store closed around 2000.
Its leases stood in the way of anything bigger, and the owners never carried out a wider rebuild.
By August 2010, Charleston's effort to remake some of its older shopping centers had stalled.
Two years earlier, planners had included Ashley Landing among roughly 12 centers they wanted rebuilt closer to the street, with offices or homes over the shops.
Some owners objected to the zoning approach.
Ashley Landing went on much as it was: shop buildings mostly occupied behind a large parking lot.
The city could encourage the owners to rebuild, but it could not make them do it.
New facades and a taproom
In February 2014 Faison, a Charlotte company, announced it had bought Ashley Landing for $19.2 million.
The center then covered about 350,000 square feet and was 92 percent leased, with Publix, Burlington Coat Factory, Dollar Tree, Big Lots, and three banks among its tenants.
Faison spent about $2 million in 2014 and 2015 on new facades, lighting, and landscaping, and it changed who stood behind the storefronts.
In March 2016 the company disclosed that removing Citi Trends had cost it more than $250,000 a year.
A Starbucks with a drive-through was open by 2017, and a new freestanding shop building went up after it.
Frothy Beard Brewing announced in May 2016 that it would take over space a church had used at the center.
Its taproom opened at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 11, 2017, with more than 20 beer taps, a patio, and Zombie Bob's Pizza working inside.
Between 2017 and 2020 about 22,000 square feet of space was split into smaller units with their own exterior doors and new facades.
By 2020 Charleston Stage was holding classes and performances in a West Ashley Theater Center at Ashley Landing, with two dance and rehearsal studios and the Pearlstine Theatre, which seats about 150.
Burlington's lease was set to run out that November.
In July 2020 the owner explored splitting its space of about 76,000 square feet among offices, entertainment, manufacturing, or logistics.
A gas station fight on the Piggly Wiggly corner
By 2013 the Piggly Wiggly on the 2.5-acre triangle beside Ashley Landing had closed, and its building at the corner was empty and deteriorating.
Faison bought the parcel around 2014 for about $1.95 million.
In 2016 it had a contract with Sunoco for a convenience store with 20 gas pumps there.
Neighbors fought it.
Former members of the Old Charles Towne District Task Force and other residents opposed the station, and the hearings drew standing-room-only crowds.
Zoning allowed a gas station on the land, and the objections turned on the building and how it would greet drivers entering West Ashley at the intersection.
At a September 2016 meeting of the Design Review Board, city planning staff recommended denial over its scale, massing, and architecture.
Two versions of the design went before the board, both were turned down, and the Sunoco contract was dissolved.
In April 2017 the City Council voted to let the city use eminent domain, if it came to that, to buy the corner, though the city wanted an agreed sale.
Its own concept for the land showed a park, recreation buildings, parking, a retention area, and a safer intersection.
The purchase closed later that year at just over $3 million. In 2018 the old supermarket came down.
A city plan for offices, a parking garage, and green space on the corner later stalled.
Publix plans a move across the lot
In July 2022 Faison proposed moving Publix across the parking lot to the side where Dollar Tree and Big Lots traded, with a new store replacing the old one, which would keep trading during construction.
That September it set a construction start for spring 2024 and described a new store of about 40,000 square feet.
Spring 2024 passed with no start.
Red Orchids China Bistro, open at the center since 2002, stood inside the area the plan would clear.
It announced in April 2023 that it would close, pointing to the center's coming rebuild, a shortage of staff, and inflation, and served its last meals on April 23.
By that November Fleet Feet had opened a running store of about 3,000 square feet at the center.
In December 2023 the Design Review Board gave unanimous conceptual approval to the new Publix, with a curbside cafe and a drive-through pharmacy, a design that meant tearing down Big Lots, Dollar Tree, the empty Red Orchids, and the storefronts next to them.
In August 2024 the mayor's administration and the developer EDENS put forward a $300 million private plan that joined the center to the city's Piggly Wiggly corner.
It called for 325 apartments, 100 townhomes, about 230,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, and over 6 acres of green space open to the public.
The council approved the package in September, with about $44 million in public infrastructure support, and ratified the development agreement in October 2024.
The sale of the center closed at the end of that month, and EDENS took control of its redevelopment.
Demolition makes room for apartments
Fencing went up around the old Big Lots in late April 2025, and demolition began in early May.
At the groundbreaking on May 7, held by EDENS and the city, Charleston Stage members performed.
Part of the old center building stays for Charleston Stage and a city community room.
Around a central green, the plan adds nine one-story restaurant and retail buildings of about 3,500 to 15,000 square feet.
Charleston Stage is already working there.
Its rebuilt space of about 10,000 square feet, with an added teaching room, two studios, and the Pearlstine Theatre, was in use by January 2026, and its TheatreSchool runs classes in it.
In February 2026 the city backed cutting the apartments from 325 to 285, with 29 of them set aside as workforce housing instead of 32.
Ashley Landing is now a shopping center under reconstruction, owned by EDENS.
Much of the old center is cleared ground, and crews are building underground stormwater storage and drainage meant to cut runoff into the neighborhoods next door.
In July 2026 Woodfield began building the apartments as Westbourne Ashley Landing, set to be finished in the third quarter of 2028.
By September VCC had won the $12.5 million contract for the new Publix, about 50,000 square feet, and 12,000 square feet of shops beside it, set to open in late summer 2027.
The shops around the green and the first rental townhomes are set for 2028.
Some of the center still trades through it all.
Publix is open every day in its freestanding store and will stay there until the new one is ready.
Fleet Feet holds free group runs from the center, Monday evenings included, and Frothy Beard pours beer, serves pizza, and runs weekly events.
In 2010 the city could only urge the owners to put homes over the shops.
Now the city's own land and money are part of the rebuild, and 285 apartments are going up on the center's ground.
Shoppers still come in for their groceries while the work goes on around them.
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