other end of the shopping center. The mall's owners worked diligently to secure replacement anchor tenants for the vacant buildings and were successful in leasing the vacant J.M. Fields building to the F.W. Woolworth Company which opened a Woolco Department Store in the building. The Pantry Pride store was leased to a local businessman who opened Jameson's Red & White Supermarket in the vacated space. The former Edward's store remained vacant for a number of years before finally being subdivided and leased to a mattress shop and an unfinished furniture store. While all appeared to be on the upswing for the newly invigorated mall, change was again in store and would deal another devastating blow to the mall. Woolco closure and Citadel Mall opening The early 1980s brought a surprising announcement when the F.W. Woolworth Company announced that it was closing all Woolco stores in the United States in 1983. The big box store would again be left vacant which made a tremendous impact on traffic at the mall. Two years before Woolco closed, the new 100-store Citadel Mall opened less than three miles (5 km) away from Ashley Plaza Mall. Many of the major national retailers pulled out of Ashley Plaza Mall and opened new locations in the much larger, more modern Citadel Mall. The mall struggled to survive as occupancy rates fell significantly. The supermarket space that formerly housed Pantry Pride and later Jameson's Red & White was leased to another locally based supermarket retailer known as The Big W Food Warehouse and ultimately closed. This space would later temporarily become a locally operated fruit and vegetable retailer for a short time. A large portion of the mall, including the space formerly occupied by Edward's, was closed in the late 1980s and vacant stores were combined and reconfigured for a Burlington Coat Factory store leaving only one small wing of the indoor mall operating with a handful of merchants. Hurricane Hugo On September 22, 1989, the mall was dealt another tremendous blow with the arrival of Hurricane Hugo which caused severe roof and water damage to many of the stores and destroyed some of the exterior facades. It would be several months before the majority of the stores could be repaired and reopened. The exterior was given a fresh new look with synthetic stucco and paint and redesigned storefronts and the remaining interior mall wing was updated with