Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well it's back out to Shops At Risdon for this closing. I don't know anything about Andrew's Jewelry, but it looks to be in the final stages of a going-out-of business sale. Actually as these were taken late last month, they be done by now.

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.

I don't know anything about this used car lot in Lexington, other than it was in a nice little legacy brick house, and they had somebody with a sense of humor doing their art.

Currently the lot is for sale -- and will be, I'm sure, another bit of development for this burgeoning corridor.

(Hat tip to commenter JohnR)

Williston Road is the connector between I-95 and US-301/US-76. Over the years I had noticed this small convenience store from time to time as I was driving the north route to the beach, and recently noticed that it was gone. What I had *not* noticed before, is that it directly abuts a cemetary (Either "Mizpah Cemetary" if you look at the sign or "Hinds Cemetary" if you look at google maps). You could probably infer a pretty good closing date by looking at the gas prices, but all I see from google reviews is that it was already closed "six months ago" (I don't know why google won't put a real date on all their reviews..).

If you look at the google photos it appears that they had a pool table inside, and maybe a bar/food area, but honestly they are too blurry to really tell.

I'm pretty sure that this former paint store in the Big Lots strip mall on Two Notch near Spring Valley still had a Porter sign (as seen in the first picture) rather than the new PPG Paints name on it, but I can't tell for sure as it has been painted over better than usual (perhaps unsurprisingly) and I can't see any label scar in these photos.

I'm also not sure of the date, but I noticed it in early October, so I'm going with "September 2021".

This shopping center has done better than I would expect lately in making vacancies good, so we'll see if something else moves in soon.

As far as I can tell, the official way to refer to this parents' chain is buybuy Baby with the two lowercase buys mushed together followed by an uppercase Baby.

Doing a bit of google work turns up surprisingly little about the specific troubles of this sub-brand. The parent company Bed Bath & Beyond, has been hit hard by retail changes in general, and COVID-19 in particular, and has published plans to shut down around 200 underperforming locations. This would leave about 1200 storefronts, so it is by no means an abandonment of the market. CNBC has stories on this here and here. Neither article specifically addresses buybuy Baby though the second one seems to include those locations in with the Bed Bath & Beyond locations.

The company itself is announcing buybuy Baby initiatives with words like renewed and expanding in the text to, at least, give the impression they still have faith in the brand:

'welcome to parenthood' is buybuy BABY's renewed promise to help make the transition to parenthood as seamless as possible and invites all customers into this new community—which is designed to support parents with the guidance and advice that's best for both them and baby.

buybuy BABY's renewed purpose is part of its parent, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., to transform the business around the customer as a digital-first, omni-always retailer. The Company last year introduced digital services such as Buy Online Pickup in Store and Curbside Pickup, along with Same Day Delivery, and continues to innovate to put digital purchases into the hands of buybuy BABY customers even sooner.

Be that as it may, *this* store in the old Circuit City location in Harbison *is* closing, and has started the final sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 15 June 2023 -- Apparently setting up to be a Planet Fitness:

Dougal's was the follow-on operation in the storefront to Fins Aquatic Livestock & Supplies. I don't get out this way often, so I can't say much about it, although it's always nice to find a notary outside the national stores where it always turns out "We don't do those". The specific closing date was given by the owner in a google review post.

It looks like I have previously tagged shops in this plaza as "Woodrow Street", so I need to change all of those to "North Woodrow Street" at some point.

Atlantic is the follow-on operation in this Two Notch storefront to Haverty's. That store closed in early 2018, and according to photos on Google maps, Atlantic opened there in December of the same year.

I have to say, after going into the lot for pictures, that the location is not very easy to get in and out of, especially if you are going East and the lot seems a bit small. Whether any of that is a factor, I don't know.

Given the dates listed on the (plentiful) roadside signs, it appears they want to wrap things up by the end of the month.

(Hat tip to commenter Thomas)

UPDATE 29 September 2021: Missed a picture:

UPDATE 13 March 2022 -- As mentioned in the comments, this building has been razed:

Main Street Home was the follow-on operation in this Broad River Road location to Floor It Now. According to their Facebook page, they moved to the new location at 1711 Lake Murray Boulevard on 24 July 2021. This is shown in the second set of pictures (though they did not come out very well).

I am not sure what is next for this building. Apparently it was listed on LoopNet at one time, but currently does not seem to be there. Commenter Andrew has noticed that some of the adjacent property has been sold, so perhaps something is in the works.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 30 September 2021: Added second picture, above, of the old location with the signage down.

This men's clothing store has moved up Two Notch several blocks East, from this strip across from Columbia Mall to a storefront next to Nick's. As far as I can tell, the move came around June of 2021.

UPDATE 13 March 2022 -- Here is the new location: