Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This building, next to the old Limelight (etc) on Berryhill Road was not really on my radar, and I could not have told you what it looked like or indeed, probably if it were there at all. However when commenter Gypsie mentioned that it had been razed, I was able to find out that it was called the William M. Mackie, Jr. Interstate Center and find a picture of it in this old LoopNet page. There are also pictures in Google Streetview, and that establishes that the LoopNet picture is taken from the back, where all the parking and the main entrance was. The front view was pretty non-descript.

The only business I find that was definitely in the building was Vision Property Management which was in Suite 200. Their web page is just parked now, so it's not clear to me that they are still around (and acording to the BBB, they may have had some problems).

With the building gone, it's a pretty good sized lot, but there is no indication of what is next (though I assume nobody would spend the money to knock it down without some plan going forward).

Appropos to nothing, Google Maps seems to think this is "Berryhill Drive", but I'm pretty sure "Berryhill Road" is correct.

(Hat tip to commenter Gypsie)

UPDATE 18 February 2022 -- Commenter Andrew points to this interesting DOT video about using the building for Fire Fighter training before the demolition:

I took the opportunity Saturday to make my annual trip to Brookgreen Gardens and the Nights Of A Thousand Candles Christmas display. This year was quite warm for a December night, unlike some years in the past, and it was very pleasant to be out and about under the trees with all the lights and candles.

As usual, the big picture stays the same: sculpture, trees & lights, but the details change yearly. This year, I think there was more going on in the Children's Garden for instance, and less in The Fountain of the Muses. I also think that they took some cues from last year's Bruce Munroe installation, which I liked quite a bit, especially in the riverbank area which rather combined the ideas from his frog display and his firefly display in a way.

One very noticable change was that the popular "Holiday Memories & Trains" exhibit has moved across the main concourse to the Rosen Galleries, leaving the old space as a members' lounge.

Though some of the remaining nights are sold out, if you can Read the rest of this entry »

This building, at the corner of Two Notch & Beltline, was originally an Eckerd Drugs, and then a Rite Aid. After Rite Aid closed, a pediatric deltal operation called Small Smiles moved in. According to what I can find, this national chain got into trouble and went Chapter 7 in 2015.

At some point after that, Capital City Dentistry set up here, and fairly recently moved up the street into the old Enterprise Rent-A-Car building:

Looking at the outside damage, it looks to me like a good deal of work is needed before anyone else can move into this building, but according to the real estate sign, it *is* leased, so apparently somebody is going to make the effort.

UPDATE 28 January 2022 -- As reported in the comments, this building has now been razed to make way for a Murphy Express:

I was at the Peak Exit Food Lion off I-26 recently, and noticed that the strip's gym, Anytime Fitness had closed and is transitioning to Hitone Fitness in the near future.

Computer Renaissance was a franchaised chain of refurbished computer stores. I know there was one in Agusta when I worked there, there was one in Harbison, and then there was this one, now a tattoo studio, on Hardscrabble Road when I came back to Columbia.

My memory is that I bought two computers here, both desktop systems, one to replace a box of my sister's that had suffered motherboard failure, and one for myself about which I'm blanking on what finally happened to it. Anyway, they were both fine, and the staff was helpful.

I said up top "Computer Renaissance was", and I think that's correct. There is still a web site, but it has not been updated since 2010, and is like a visit to another age. However, I was able to find from it that the staff from the Hardscrabble store have moved on to Bristeeri Technologies which seems to be located in Elgin.