Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Beltline Auto Brokers certainly wasn't the first operation in this sort of sprawling building on Beltline just past the old Kim's Beauty, but it is the most recent.

Interestingly, I am not able to locate a listing in the phonebooks I have at home to say when it closed. Also interestingly, surprisingly few businesses have "Beltline" in their name.

I'm not real sure what Southern Armature did. The place has bays like a garage, and an armature is part of a generator or alternator, but I can't imagine a business based on just fixing alternator parts. Perhaps they specialized in alternators as a whole, or electrical systems. Anyway, they are listed in this year's (Feb 2013) phonebook, so the sale and rezoning for City Gas is a pretty recent development.

When I first noticed the "sold" sign, the place was still intact. As of 18 August, they have ripped most of it apart, though so far they have kept the endpieces.

UPDATE 18 September 2013 -- Construction continues:

UPDATE 15 October 2013 -- work continues. The canopy looks done:

UPDATE 21 February 2014 -- City Gas is open:

There's been a fair bit of musical chairs going on at the old Dick Dyer Toyota lot on Two Notch. The latest is that this Prestige has moved from the old gas-station-looking building at the Northeast corner of Two Notch and Albritton to the old Dick Dyer Bodyshop building at the corner of Windover Street and Two Notch. Meanwhile, the body shop has moved into the old dealership building proper.

UPDATE 15 October 2013 -- It's now Spunky's Auto Sales:

Here's another case of Enterprise Rent-A-Car shifting locations, something they have done several times recently in the Columbia area.

In this case, they have moved from a location at the corner of Sunset & Hope Ferry near Uno to a location close to I-20 at 4835 Sunset, the former Sunset Tatoos.

UPDATE 17 February 2014 -- The original building (along with the adjacent Bike To Nature building) has now been demolished for construction:

I'm not sure what the story is with this lot and house at 4505 Broad River Road, which has certainly been other things than a car lot. You'll notice that that, oddly, it has the same street address as the recently closed Waffle House, but this this real estate listing explains:

This parcel surrounds the corner occupied by Waffle House.

While this listing says:

Plans were in the works for a 15,000 sq ft retail space.

with the past tense leading me to believe those plans are no longer in the works.

This tax information says the house on the lot was built in 1884. I would have called it old, but not *that* old. The place almost has a funeral home look to it. It's certainly not in the best of shape, but it would still be a shame to tear it down.

Here's another place with the old sign turned around in the sign-box to keep the weather out. It's not something I had ever noticed before starting this blog, but something I've seen many times since then.

I think I've used Hertz a few times at various airports around the country and they were fine (not that there's much to differentiate the big rental outfits). Personally, I hate driving a rental. I've got my car aged to perfection, and set up like I want it, and nothing else really fills the bill.

I'm guessing at a 2009 date here. Earlier phonebooks have them at 744 West Main, and later ones don't have them at all, but I happen to be missing the actual 2009 book.

I really like the "stained glass" on the side of the building.

There was a place in Camden on US-1 that used to do the same thing, though I'm not sure how being able to put a car on a stick indicates the same skills needed to *fix* a car..

I already did a closing on this building on Meeting Street in West Columbia near Triangle City for when it was Bell's Hamburger Drive-In, but I noticed a while ago that the follow on operation (which was not the immediate follow-on!) Chiva Auto Sales is now gone as well.

That gave me a chance to get some more shots of this place, without all the cars parked outside, and the guy wondering what the heck I was doing sitting inside. However, the place is tightly fenced off now, so I still can't get any close shots through the building windows. It will be a shame if the next owners tear down the building and marquee which absolutely scream of a certain era, but I can't imagine it being suited to much other than used-car office these days..

UPDATE 3 December 2014 -- This building has now been razed. See the pictures at the Bell's Hamburger Drive-In closing.

I don't have a street number and so couldn't find out the name, but this little vacant lot adjoining Sunset Court was a used car operation in the not too distant past, though as you can see, their stock is now rather limited:

I still miss when this Two Notch lot was Dick Dyer Toyota and I could drop my car off and walk home. Since then, they've tried a couple of concepts there. I think at one point it was a scooter store, then they had the Mitsubishi & Suzuki lot. I'm not sure how to characterize what happend to that dealership. The sign says it "moved" to Love Automotive, but I'm guessing a change in franchaise went with that. At any rate it now appears that the Dick Dyer Body Shop will be moving from the bottom corner of the lot into the main building.