"Since we are a non-profit organization, the problem right now that we're running into with this unfortunate circumstance is that places now have such high rent." That's Bryce Lewis, secretary of the Charleston Area Model Railroad Club, describing what it's like to lose a mall storefront you've operated out of since 2009 with about ninety days' notice.
If you've driven past Citadel Mall lately and noticed fencing where there wasn't fencing before, or wondered why the old JCPenney corner looks more like a hospital campus every month, you're not imagining a slow decline. You're watching two different malls get built out of one address, on two completely different schedules, and the small, beloved, free-to-the-public tenants are the ones absorbing the cost of that split.
What's Actually Leaving, and When
Three longtime tenants near Dillard's got word at the end of February 2026 that their time at the mall was up. Here's the timeline as it actually played out:
| Tenant | Operating at the mall since | Notified | Closed or scheduled to close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charleston Area Model Railroad Club | 2009 | Late February 2026 | Final public days April 11–12 and April 14, 2026 |
| ARC Take 2 (performing arts studio) | 2022 | February 11, 2026 | March 31, 2026 |
| Charleston Planetarium | 2025 | Late February 2026 | By May 31, 2026 |
The railroad club's own website still describes the search for a new home in present tense, months after that April closing weekend came and went, listing warehouses, storefronts, and community spaces as possibilities and asking Charleston residents to donate packing materials and shelving. As of this writing, no new address has been announced. The planetarium's founder, Paul Gangarosa, told reporters in March he hoped to keep the operation going somewhere else in the area. No relocation has surfaced yet in anything we've found since.
What ties all three together isn't the type of business. It's the type of lease. None of them are anchor tenants, and none of them had the kind of long-term, separately-owned real estate that protects a department store from a change in mall ownership.
The Real Reason, and Why It Isn't What You've Heard Before
If you've lived in West Ashley for a while, you've probably heard some version of "they're turning Citadel Mall into Epic Center" at some point over the last several years. That project is real, it passed a third reading at Charleston City Council back in 2019, and it envisioned something close to four million square feet of housing, hotel, office, retail, and even an arena built out over twenty years. It's still technically on the books.
It's also not what's displacing the model train club.
What's actually happening moved faster and smaller. The Medical University of South Carolina's Board of Trustees approved an $83.5 million purchase in December 2025, and the deal closed by December 20 of that year. MUSC didn't buy the whole mall. It bought the vacant Sears building, roughly 330,000 square feet of inline mall space, and more than 2,000 parking spaces, on top of the 126,000 square feet it already leased for its West Ashley Medical Pavilion. That pavilion has operated at the mall since 2019 and had already outgrown its footprint, according to an MUSC representative.
This is a direct real estate transaction by a hospital system that needed more room, not the mixed-use vision the city approved seven years ago. A Post and Courier editorial written around the time of the sale put it plainly: it's unclear when the ownership, economics, and other pieces might ever line up to revive that bigger redevelopment. The MUSC deal, by contrast, already has a closing date, a signed sale, and three displaced small businesses to show for it.
What Isn't Changing, and Why That Matters
Here's the part that should ease some worry if you shop at the mall regularly: the anchor stores aren't part of any of this.
- Belk, Dillard's, and Target retain their own buildings and their own parking, because those parcels are privately owned by each retailer, not by the mall's operating company.
- Dick's Sporting Goods and PetSmart sit on their own outparcels the same way.
- Citadel Mall Stadium 16 Cinemas is likewise a separately held property.
The mall itself has been under Singerman Real Estate's ownership since 2023, and MUSC's purchase carved a piece out of Singerman's holdings, not the anchors' individually owned buildings. That's the practical reason your Dillard's run or your Friday-night movie plans aren't affected by any of this, even as the wing near the old JCPenney fills with fencing and transportation schedules for MUSC employee parking.
The Half of the Mall That's Actually Getting New Tenants
While the mall's community-facing side has been losing tenants, the retail and food side has quietly kept adding them.
Waffle Sensations, owned by Kenneth Dozier, started as a food truck, grew into catering, and recently landed a permanent spot in the mall's food court, bringing what locals have described as home-style comfort food to a corner of Citadel Mall that's spent years mostly known for its Chick-fil-A and Subway. Next Level Photo Education opened up next to the Planet Fitness location inside the mall, offering photography classes for all ages, a small but genuine addition to what you can actually do there on a weekend afternoon.
So the mall isn't shrinking uniformly. One part of it is being absorbed into a hospital system's expansion plans. Another part is still drawing small, independent operators willing to bet on foot traffic. Those two stories are happening at the same address, on the same timeline, and they read almost like different neighborhoods if you only pay attention to one side.
Where To Look If You Want To Follow Along
If you were a regular at the free model train layout, the club's own site is the place to watch for a new address, since it's still updating its search for space as of now. If you were a Charleston Planetarium regular, there's been no confirmed relocation announcement since Gangarosa's comments back in March. And if you're headed to the mall for the first time in a while, expect construction fencing around the former Sears wing and adjusted parking as MUSC's build-out continues.
None of this touches the four-million-square-foot Epic Center vision that's technically still sitting in the city's plans. That project, if it ever moves forward, would be a different kind of change entirely, one built through zoning approvals and years of construction rather than a single real estate closing. For now, the version of Citadel Mall that's actually changing is the smaller, faster one: a hospital system buying the space it needs, and three small, well-loved tenants scrambling to find somewhere else to go.
West Ashley residents have watched this mall get talked about as a redevelopment story for the better part of a decade. What's actually unfolding this year is a narrower, more concrete one, and it's worth knowing the difference before you repeat the wrong version of it to a neighbor.
If daily life in West Ashley, from a Saturday at the mall to a weeknight dinner on Ashley River Road, has you thinking more seriously about the neighborhood itself, Charleston Hot Properties is always glad to talk through what's changing here and what it might mean for you.
