Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I mentioned a while back that this place was a convenience store while I was growing up. Since then, it has been a number of things but most recently a garage of some sort. It's kind of amusing that the building at the top of the hill went exactly the opposite way: from garage to convenience store.

I was driving towards Triangle City a few weekends ago, and noticed a blank business sign in front of a nice brick house fairly near the intersection of Charleston Highway and Knox Abbott. As usual, when I actually get out and about, it was a good ways into the afternoon, so I was shooting against the sun, and it's a poor shot.

As best I can determine the only business here in recent times was Griffin Homes & Properties. Perhaps before that, it was still a residence.

According to this site Palmetto Health leased this whole building and "[t]he building has a procedure area, a nursing station, and rehabilitation room". You can see a picture of it in operation here.

I believe that as in the Decker location, they may have moved in a different direction, because as far as I can tell from the phonebook, this practice has not been relocated.

Commenter badger points out that Thermo King "[T]he smart choice for transport temperature control" has moved from this Shop Road location out to 30 Sontagg Drive in Gaston.

I actually saw the new location from I-26 on my last trip to Florida, but didn't know I should take a picture then, and didn't want to get stuck in the standard I-26 traffic jam just for that last weekend.

(Hat tip to commenter Badger)

This little Wal-Mart outparcel in fact predates Wal-Mart and may have actually existed while the late, lamented Bush River Mall was still going.

At any rate this was one of several Butterfly Life locations in the metro area. The Feb 2008-2009 phonebook actually lists four, though they were all gone by the Feb 2010-2011 book. As best I can determine, Butterfly Life was some sort of a day spa.

I noticed this nice little brick office building droving from Lexington to Irmo a few weekends ago. Apparently the clinic has relocated to 121 Park Place Court, which is off of Sunset, just about where Monkey Joe's used to be.

UPDATE 25 September 2015 -- The new location:

A little googling reveals that this two building + house strip on US-1 in West Columbia was Boss Bull pawnshop.

You can see that there is a little pond out back and interestingly, the lot figures in the West Columbia debate about urban chicken farming:

Chairperson Unthank recognized Mr. Frank Barron
who has lived at 800 State Street for 10 years.
Mr. Barron stated that he has raised chickens
since he was nine years old. He wanted to inform
the public that chickens could be kept in a
sanitary manner. He has helped a young boy set up
a chicken house at 2910 Augusta Road, and invited
everyone to stop by and look at it. Half of the
chicken house is on a sled so that it may be
moved around to allow the droppings to fertilize
the grass. Mr. Barron believes that raising
chickens inside the city should not cause a
problem if the coops are properly kept.

My father always wondered if he had made the wrong choice between chicken farming and English teaching. Or so he said.

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.

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..