Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Lionel Playworld was, I believe, the first anchor tenant for the ill-fated strip-mall at the corner of Decker and Trenholm Extension (though I am not sure the extension was finished at the time it opened). The place keeps coming up in the comments to the Columbia Mall Toys-R-Us post, so I thought I would give it its own post.

My understanding is that the chain was owned by the same company that made the iconic 3-rail 0-27 guage model trains, and was a "big box" toy store, one of the first in the Columbia market. The place operated fairly quietly until the end when it earned a lot of bad will from the shopping public. I believe the way it unfolded was that the decision to close the store was made in the fall, but not announced. They operated through Christmas Eve, and then closed without warning, leaving anyone with a Christmas gift to return or exchange high and dry -- it got quite a bit of local media attention at the time.

After Lionel the strip went into heavy decline, and the building sat empty for a number of years until Winn-Dixie opened there (in the left part of the building) with great fanfare. After Winn-Dixie pulled out of South Carolina, the building sat idle for several years again, until The Comedy House relocated there from the Saint Andrews Road area (after a gap). From the signage, a bingo operation also now uses the location.

Continuing my recent theme of defunct Eckerd stores, this one on Broad River Road at the intersection with Saint Andrews Road (and across from the old Steve's #1 Sub Contractor sub shop) was, if I recall correctly, one of the newer stores. It has the "modern" corner-lot siting with a drive-through. It sits, in fact, catty-cornered across the street from a new-ish CVS of the same vintage, proving the site is viable for drugstores -- I suspect that if Eckerd's in general hadn't had problems and had held on to this store a few years more, Rite Aid could have done a viable business there.

UPDATE 8 March 2011 -- It's now a Dollar Tree:

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

I don't have any feelings for or against Circle K. I'm glad to stop at one if I need gas or an Interstate "comfort" break, but I don't seek them out. I'd always imagined they were pretty stable businesses though -- people are always going to need gas, restrooms and snacks, so I was a bit surprised to see that this one, on Broad River Road next to Rush's and across the street from the defunct AMF Bowling Center had gone under.

On the other hand, Broad River Road near I-20 isn't doing great in general what with the bowling center gone, Intersection Center (virtually) gone, Dutch Square a shadow of its former self, Pizza Hut gone, Hooters gone etc.

UPDATE 21 December 2011 -- Here are some pictures from 23 October 2011 as work on getting the tanks out and stripping the canopy begins:

UPDATE 4 April 2012 -- The new canopy is complete, and as commenter Andrew mentions, "El Cheapo" gas pumps have been installed. There is obviously a good bit of work left to do, but apparently it it will be an El Cheapo:

UPDATE 24 August 2012 -- El Cheapo is open (and has been for a while):

UPDATE 23 March 2023: Updating tags, adding map icon.

I have written about Circuit City before. In particular, I considered the first and second locations of the Two Notch store here, and the second location of the Harbison store here.

I think the upshot of my thoughts on the chain was that I did not like their first incarnation, which had predatory salesmen (on commission, I assume) and a nosy checkout process (almost as bad as Radio Shack's old checkout process). I liked the business model they adopted with the moves to Harbison and the final Two Notch location a lot better. It was now a "regular" store, and you could get help, but the sales staff would mostly leave you alone until you asked for it.

For some reason, it wasn't enough. I don't understand why the consumer electronics market doesn't have room for a #2 store as well as #1 Best Buy (or number whatever Tweeter) but apparently it doesn't. On the other hand, I don't feel a real loss with Circuit City's demise the way I did with CompUSA's. When Best Buy drove CompUSA under, it was not an adequate replacement. Best Buy simply did not stock the depth of computer parts that CompUSA did. I recall several times needing a part in Columbia, and having either to drive to CompUSA in Augusta or mail order it because no store in Columbia had one. I don't see that as the case with Circuit City as Best Buy pretty well covers their entire stock.

Still it's sad to see anything go under. I'm going to put a break before the bulk of the pictures so the page won't take forever to load if you're not interested, but there are, I think, five different sets there. First is the Harbison store at night just after the closing was announced. (The discounts weren't particularly good that night, though the store was very busy. I heard one employee say to another: We had lots better discounts during the holidays -- where were all these people when it could have helped us?). The second set is daytime shots of the Harbison store on Saturday 7 March 2009 -- the penultimate day of operation. (I went inside and found most items gone, except for racks and racks of USB cables for some reason..). The third set is night shots of the Two Notch store just after bankruptcy was announced. The fourth set is night shots of Two Notch taken, I believe, on 1 March, a week before closing, and the fifth set is exterior and interior shots of the Two Notch store taken today, 8 March 2009 -- the final day of operation.

Actually "operation" is stretching it -- all merchandise was gone, and they were selling off the store fixtures only by that point. I wouldn't have minded having a "media cabinet", but I have no place for it, and it was till a bit pricey for my liking.

Oh well, hopefully H. H. Gregg and Wal Mart will continue to keep Best Buy on its toes because as of today, Circuit City is unplugged.

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Tweeter was a Circuit City-like store on Harbison Boulevard in a Columbiana Center outparcel. I only went in the place once, and I'm afraid that it worked itself onto "not a great place" list for reasons mostly (but not entirely) beyond the staff's control. I forget exactly what I was looking for, or if it was just browsing, but the store was fairly crowded, and apparently a salesman at the car stereo speaker kiosk had just been asked by a customer to put in the customer's CD to see what it would sound like on the Tweeter's speakers. Mistake: suddenly the entire store was filled with the loudest possible Gonna F*** my B**** after I slap her up rap song imagineable. There were several parents with kids in the store and I saw them cringe. Granted the staff was blindsided, but they should either have thought about incidents like that beforehand, or at least have acted more swiftly in the event. I have no problem with whatever you listen to, but there are times and places.

Anyway, the whole chain went bankrupt in 2008 according to Wikipedia. I don't know why, but apparently there's not a lot of space in that area of retail. Even the #2 store failed, so I guess it's not a surprise that stores further down the food chain couldn't make it either.

UPDATE 1 March 2010: Sky City also has a post on this Tweeter.

UPDATE 6 January 2012 -- As noted by commenter Andrew, this (drastically remodelled) building is now open as Jared The Galleria Of Jewelry:

UPDATE 8 Mar 2009 -- More pictures:

I wanted to get a front shot of this building, but as you can see, traffic was pretty bad on Broad River Road at the time; perhaps I'll get one later. At any rate, this place, now a TitleMax loan operation was once a Steve's #1 Sub Contractor sandwich shop. Google suggests that there are still several branches of the chain in town, but not in places that I normally go -- this is the only one I can recall seeing. In the event, I never made it there, because it's a long way to go for a sandwich.

That said, what I really want to see in Columbia is something like Dagwood's Sports Bar & Deli in Surfside Beach. They have nice booths, table-service, honking-big glasses, which they keep filled, and a great you-name-the-ingredients sandwich building option with sandwiches that come on an excellent in-store fresh baked sub-roll. I've tried a number of sandwich operations in Columbia without finding its equal. I was not impressed at all with Duke's, Which-Wich is very industrial, with fountain-tea, most of the per-se "sub" shops have uncomfortable seating, Panera has odd sandwich choices, as does McAlister's and Groucho's has so-so bread. I think Very's on Two Notch comes the closest. Any suggestions?

Here's another furnishings store going under. Village Furniture is way out on Two Notch (to the point that its just called Highway 1). It's technically in Elgin, but not what I think of as Elgin -- more like "Pontiac-plus". Anyway it's right past County Line Pottery (which looks exactly as it did 35 years ago..) over the county line into Kershaw County.

I don't know anything about the store, but I'll hazard a guess that it's a casualty of the housing bust. I admire the bang-up job they're doing on their closing signage. It must have been depressing to do, but its quite eye-catching and effective.

(Hat tip to Have Your Say commenter "Veign")

The UPS Store at Trenholm Plaza made the move across the parking lot from the Holligan's wing to the Post Office side near the new Italian restaurant. It rejoins former neighbor Foilline Vision Center there, leaving Holligan's as the only business still operating on the outer edge of the plaza. At one time I had heard Holligan's was to move into the old Rogers Brothers spot, then I had heard it was going into the old Coldstone location. Unless the property owners have changed their mind about tearing down that wing, it will have to go somewhere.

I find it a little interesting that the UPS store is now so close to the Post Office. In theory, they are competitors, and strip malls often have "no compete" clauses that play into who they will lease to. I remember an interesting news story about a court forced to rule if a "burrito" was a "sandwich" to decide if a property owner had broken a promise to a sandwich shop not to allow another sandwich shop in. Of course Trenholm Plaza has always been weird that way. They have two grocery stores, and essentially two "Hallmark" stores.

UPDATE 29 November 2011: The old location is to be a Cafe Caturra.

I was going to Panera Bread the other day, and noticed that this Advance Auto Parts store in an outparcel of the Garners Ferry Road K-Mart was gone. Actually, the day I noticed it, one of those fly-by-night sofa sales operations had set up shop in the parking lot (which is well located for access and visibility). The door sign optimistically states "closed temporarily", but we shall see. Interestingly (or not :-) this place is just catty-cornered across the street from the NAPA Auto Parts store I wrote about a while back.

And as a special added bonus, the historical marker for "Camp Jackson", which is in the store parking lot:

UPDATE 18 March 2009:

Well, looks like I took those pictures just in time. I went by on 12 March, and they had already knocked the whole place down (except for the front steps) and were digging a honking big hole where it was. So far the historic plaque is untouched.

UPDATE 17 Dec 2010: Fixed the post title to indicate "Devine Street" rather than "Garners Ferry Road". Added a second picture of the new store.

UPDATE 5 October 2009: The new store is built and open:

UPDATE 17 Dec 2010: Changed post title to indicate Devine Street rather than Garners Ferry Road. Added another picture of the new store.

UPDATE 4 April 2022: Updating tags, adding map icon.

When I was growing up, my grandmother had a La-Z-Boy, as did two aunts. We kids always loved to get into them, lever out the footrest and throw ourselves backwards, listening to the chair ratchet up. When my sister moved out, she got one for herself, and I finally took the opportunity to get one for myself a few years ago.

In the event, I find that I spend more time sitting in front of this computer than in my comfortable recliner, but still it's nice to finally have a good chair. I picked it out at this outlet on Forest Drive, just down from Trenholm Plaza heading towards Fort Jackson, and they delivered and assembled it with no drama. There were a number of contractors working in the building today, so I suppose it is going to have a new life as something though I didn't see any indication as to what. I'm also not sure what happened to La-Z-Boy itself. I'd guess another casualty of the housing crash -- you most often need new furniture for a new house, otherwise you can live with the pieces you have for a while longer.

UPDATE 20 April 2009:

As Mrs. SK notes below, Tuesday Morning is here.

It's interesting that they came back this close to Trenholm Plaza. That makes me guess they were shown the door there as part of the plaza upgrade rather than just not being viable there as I had initially thought.

UPDATE 18 May 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.