with the construction across Johnston Road of a new power centre called the Pacific Rim Shopping Centre, which opened in early 2005 with Wal-Mart and Extra Foods as its anchors, followed by the closure of the Liquidation World store in May 2006 (several months after Safeway's lease on the location expired), which led to a further exodus of retailers. From a high of about 45 stores and services in the 1980s, Alberni Mall approached dead mall status near the end of its function as an indoor mall as its tenant list dropped to just four businesses by the time of its closure—Canadian Tire, The Source, Mark's Work Wearhouse, and Solda's Restaurant, with all other businesses either relocating to the new Pacific Rim Centre or elsewhere in Port Alberni, or closing their doors altogether. In August 2006, the mall began undergoing complete redevelopment to turn it into a power centre similar to the neighboring Pacific Rim Centre. As part of the overhaul, the site of the old Boots/Pharmasave and Peoples Jewellers locations in the mall’s east end was the first part of the old mall to be torn down to make way for a relocation of Mark’s Work Wearhouse beside Canadian Tire; The front portion of the remainder of the mall between the new Mark’s Work Wearhouse and the former Safeway/Liquidation World was levelled for a parking lot while the back portion will renovated for retail space; and the existing Safeway space at the mall’s west end will be renovated and divided into smaller retail spaces. On April 15, 2007, the main part of the mall closed to allow demolition and renovations to resume as Mark's Work Wearhouse relocated to its new store (which opened four days earlier, on April 11), while The Source By Circuit City closed temporarily to prepare for a relocation to its new Pacific Rim Centre location (which opened in early July) and Solda’s also temporarily closed while its owners prepared a new location for the restaurant. The first two new tenants for the mall as part of its revitalization arrived in late 2007 when the dollar store chain Dollar Giant opened for business in November, followed by Boston Pizza on December 28. Redevelopment of the old mall was expected to continue into 2008, but further renovations were subsequently put on hold due to pending interest from other prospective new tenants and the recent economic downturn. On