Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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There is something going in the corner of Trenholm Plaza by Chico's. One of the waitresses at Rosso thought it might be a small garden courtyard, but nobody really seemed to know. That might be nice, but losing several more prime parking spaces in the often full lot will hurt.

UPDATE 19 August 2016 -- More pix:

Should also mention that Michael's has moved over as you can see above and that the old Hooligan's space has been gutted and is also under construction:

If you have two and a half million dollars to spare this 77,400 square foot warehouse could be all yours. Seems like it would be good for a skating rink.. if it were 30 years ago.

In the meantime, it appears that Snider Tire has moved to 1010 Idlewild Boulevard.

I don't go into antique shops as much as I used to, but when I did, "junk" was a real draw as you never knew just what you would find. At any rate though, whatever it was, you can't find it in Pontiac anymore, you have to head to Lexington.

(Those would be much better cloud reflection shots if I had moved the car..)

This is the little strip at Shoppes At Woodhill which has seen Radio Shack and Qdoba leave and Chipolte and Starbucks arrive. In one of the pictures I took for Qdoba, I can see that this little wine shop originally had another name, but I can't quite make it out. At any rate, they are now closing and running their final sale.

(Hat tip to my sister)

This storefront is in the Two Notch strip mall that almost abuts Best Buy. I've always thought it was a little curious that Best Buy never worked out some sort of deal to bring a lane around behind their building to get access to the traffic light here as they have none.

Anyway, this cellphone operation seems to have closed in 2015 judging from my phonebooks.

Well, after mailing out the flyers in May, the Richland Mall Bank Of America is finally closed. As you'll recall, they closed the drive-through in March 2015 at which point the writing was probably on the wall.

I don't know why, but I had it in my mind that the ATM would remain, though in the event that turns out not to be the case. At any rate, I believe that Trenholm Plaza is now the only Forest Acres BOA location.

UPDATE 8 May 2018 -- This building has now been sold, though there is no indication of what is planned there:

UPDATE 30 August 2018 -- As commenter Dennis Craighead notes in Have Your Say, this building is being razed. I guess building something there demonstrates some belief that the whole Richland Mall property will not just be plowed under at some point..

Well, that's a shame.

While I was out of town, 92.1 The Palm vanished from the Columbia airwaves. This station had one of the most interesting playlists in town, running to R&B flavored cuts you didn't hear elsewhere along with album tracks that seemed to have been chosen with some actual thought. According to their goodbye message you may find a similar mix online at their sister stations in NC & VA though I have not yet sampled them. Wikipedia has the history of the frequency (officialy WWNU) here.

I'm not quite sure what has been going on with the replacement signal, praise channel HIS Radio. The first time I heard it, it was on 96.7 HD2, the old Son Of Steve spot, replacing Son Of Steve follow-on format "Classic Vinyl". After that, fairly brief, time, it moved to 96.7 HD3, with "Classic Vinyl" returning to HD2. Then I saw the billboard above trumpeting the debute of HIS Radio on 106.3. So, as of now, I believe HIS Radio is in the Columbia market at three simulcasting locations: 92.1, 106.3 and 96.7 HD3. That seems odd to me.

(Hat tip to commenter Mr. B.O. via email)