Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Golfsmith was the follow-on operation in this storefront to OfficeMax/Office Depot, moving in sometime in 2013.

As this article explains, the firm filed for Chapter 11 in mid September. What went wrong, well, from the same source

But really what went wrong, and what happens next?

To the first point, it’s clear from a read of the Golfsmith bankruptcy filing and those familiar with the company both internally and externally that Golfsmith expanded to its current 109 stores in the U.S. too aggressively, in the wrong way (as far as store formats go) and most likely without proper capital to support such expansion.

....
....

All of which was exacerbated by the fact that--as part of the Chapter 11 filing reads--“the enthusiasm underpinning the ‘Tiger Woods Phenomenon’ significantly waned.”

Apparently Dick's Sporting Goods has acquired at least some of the Golfsmith assets, but I'm not clear from this story whether that is nationally or just in Pennsylvania.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 13 September 2017 -- Now a popup Halloween store, Spirit Halloween:

I never went to this place often, but at one time it was on my regular rounds, and I probably stopped by two or three times a year. I realized though when commenter Justin mentioned the place was closing that it had probably been twenty years since my last visit.

In the event, I found it pretty much as I remembered it. The place is divided into two buildings, the one on the north side of the property has an "ice house" look, while the one on the south side may have been a small warehouse. Each building is divided into individually curated stalls, thus the fairly common "antique mall" format. I hadn't recalled a stall with what looked to be pretty much every issue of Playboy ever published, but there was one, as well as a 40's era Rockola jukebox I would dearly love to have had I the space and the cash, along with several old kitchen ranges about which I could say the same.

Walking through, I was also given a few instances to reflect on how much life, or at least my life, has changed. At one time, I would probably have examined every 33 & 45 in the stacks, and probably would have found some to take home. Now: a) Who has the time? & b) What would I do with them? I do have a turntable, but realistically it's easier to find the song online and pay $0.99 for it rather than spend 20 minutes futzing with the turntable and CD recorder. The same largely goes for old books.

I didn't see any notice posted to the effect of "We lost our lease", or "We're retiring" to explain the upcoming closure, but I would guess that this lot, which for years was out of the way, and down-at-the-heels, is now a pretty valuable property with the recent opening of apartments in the Palmetto Compress Warehouse and the Carolina Collegiate FCU location.

(Hat tip to commenter Justin)

UPDATE 6 April 2017 -- As reported in the comments, this place has been razed. At the time of these pictures, it was the South building only. They are reportedly both gone now:

I didn't know the South Carolina Association of Counties was a thing, but it is, and apparently they have moved from this Fernandina Road location to 1919 Thurmond Mall, near Richland Street.

Capitol City Insurance whose marquee you can almost see on the building and whose name the LoopNet listing puts to the building, seems to have moved north up Fernandina to the other side of Piney Grove to 1 Fernandina Court.

This old building had been a number of things over the years, most of which I cannot at all recall, but I think at one time it was a "reproduction" furniture store, and at another time an arts & crafts store.

In fact, it was in that later incarnation that was the only time I went inside, and then only by mistake. I believe it was in the 90s, and the south strand did not yet have a lot of options for coffee. Certainly there was nothing like today's environment where every McDonalds has decent specialty coffee (and excellent regular coffee). I don't believe that Latte Litchfield had yet opened, (though the Chocolate & Coffee House in the Litchfield Exchange a mile or so north had). At any rate, to get back to the story, I was driving back to the Island and saw a sign on this building advertising Cappuccino, and thinking a late afternoon caffeine fix sounded pretty good, I turned in.

Well, as it happened, I had misread the situation, thinking that the whole building was one business, when in fact it was two. The arts and crafts store was in main front part, while the cafe operation was in the attachment to the rear, and was closed for the day, something of which I was unaware. In fact, the arts and crafts operation was closing too as it was, I think, 6pm, and as I stepped inside, the guy was turning off the lights.

He promptly turned them back on, showing rows of items I had no interest in buying (not that it was bad stuff, but I was just looking for coffee) and starting a speil about local craftsmen. In the end, I felt bad enough about causing him to re-open when he was obviously ready to leave for the day, especially when I had caused him to do so through my mistake, that I ended up buying a hand painted sheet-metal lizard magnet to make myself feel a little better about putting him to the trouble and hopefully to make him feel I had hadn't totally wasted his time. The lizard actually turned out to be a cheery little piece that is still on our refrigerator.

Both the craft store and the cafe closed fairly shortly thereafter, but as you can see from these pictures, both spaces were reoccupied, and lizards continued to be associated with the property.

Read the rest of this entry »

The State reports that lulumon athletica (which apparently is spelled without capitals) has closed this Shandon showroom, of which I was completely unaware, and will be opening a full store in Trenholm Plaza on 18 November 2016, apparently in this slot:

which featured here back in August.

I was going sort of the wrong way, and didn't get great pictures, but here is the former Circle K at the intersection of Hardscrabble & Clemson Roads. Commenter Andrew reports that it has moved to the catty-corner opposite in a former Kangaroo Express/BP location possibly since the two locations would be under the same chain ownership after Circle K bought out Kangaroo. Unfortunately, I forgot that part of the comment while I was driving around, and thus did not take any pictures of the other corner..

(Hat tip to commenters Clay & Andrew)

UPDATE 15 May 2017 -- Finally got back to get some better pictures of this place:

UPDATE 9 August 2017 -- As reported by commenter Jason this place has now been knocked down:

UPDATE 29 March 2023: Adding map icon and updating tags.

I could be wrong, and perhaps this place will re-open as tax season rolls around, but right now, it looks pretty defunct, with the furnishings completely stripped, a real-estate key caddy on the front door and abandoned televisions piled on the front stoop. The only ambiguity is that the marquee has not been taken down..

UPDATE 11 October 2018 -- This place is now a hand car wash:

When I was on the Island after Matthew, I found things in surprisingly good shape, at least since my refence point was Hurricane Hugo. The Island lost only one house during the storm, and that from fire.

However, there was obviously a good bit of storm damage, and I noticed that this house, which somehow had never struck my notice before, was in sad shape. Since it sat almost directly across the street from the Pawleys Island Chapel, I was not surprised to learn today that it was named Chapel View. I learned that because my sister brought to my attention this tweet from the Pawleys Island Police Department, showing the demolition of the house. The last picture above comes from this tweet, which I think is OK to directly post here since it was taken by a public agency.

There is a bit more information on the house at this SCIWAY post: Apparently it was owned by an artist from Virginia.

I believe this is the first house on the Island to be demolished since Wagon Wheel abuting the town park in 2010, though there is another house near the North Causeway that seems to go underwater quite often and I am not quite sure how it is still standing.

(Hat tip to my sister)

UPATE 19 March 2019: There are now extensive comments from the last owner about the house on the SC Picture Project page

Commenter Jason reports the closing of this locally owned bedroom store at the I-20/US-378 interchange. Assuming they are connected with the Augusta Road location, it appears this was a retirement.

Cola Daily implies in passing, that this location opened around November 2015, so that's about a year. I don't think the little strip mall has been open much longer than that itself.

UPDATE 21 January 2017 -- As mentioned in the comments, this space is fitting out to be a Sub Station II:

Well, I made my now annual trip to the Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville NC this last weekend. Unlike last year, when the weather was miserable, you could not have asked for more pleasant weather this year. In fact, it was actually verging onto too warm some of the time.

There was the usual assortment of vendors and entertainment as well as some acts I don't recall seeing there before. I'll try to get a few videos up later in an update, but right now it is just still from Saturday & Sunday. I did not spend as much time weeding down the shots as I could have, so it's a bit verbose, or, 'pixose', perhaps. You can also see some shots I was trying to get but never captured fully to my satisfaction.

The faire continues on through Sunday 20 November, and Huntersville is not that far (though admittedly I-77, as always, is a dice-roll..) so if you've got a free day this fall, go for it!

Read the rest of this entry »