Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This Toyota Tercel station wagon was the only car we ever bought from Toyota Center. Usually we dealt with Dick Dyer since they were a lot closer, but for whatever reason, Toyota Center had the car we wanted at the time we needed it (even then, 5-speeds were getting harder to come by). The car (which we called The Leatherneck based on a title in the detailing) was a bit of a dog, as Toyota never should have put an engine that small in a body that big, but that wasn't Toyota Center's fault, and as I recall they were fine.

This summer they pulled up stakes for both their new and used operations from their longtime Airport Boulevard location, and relocated to US-378/Sunset Boulevard near I-26. I have not yet seen the new location, but judging from nearby billboards they have also changed their name as part of the move.

On Airport Boulevard, the "new" car center was on the west side of the street at 1640 and the "used" car center was on the east at 1645.

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This building in Triangle City as been a number of different automative service operations, as I noted here. Automotive Tekniques moved in at the start of September 2011, and seems to have lasted until late last year. I think I had some photos of the place in operation, but I can put my hands on them right now.

Currently a zoning sign on the property suggests it will be changing from C-1 Intensive Commercial to C-2 General Commercial. I'm not sure what that actually means, but to me it suggests a future retail operation.

(Hat tip to commenter tonkatoy)

UPDATE 17 September 2016 -- This is now STS Auto Sales & Repairs. Cola Daily says they opened on 25 September 2014 and that the name stands for Sales To Service:

I've featured this building on Bush River Road across from the new(ish) Wal-Mart, before, but erroneously in a post I still have to sit down and clean up and correct eventually. Hopefully this post will be more correct.

This building was a Food Lion grocery until the 1990s. I'm not sure when it closed, but it is not listed in the February 1997 phonebook, so I'm guessing the mid-1990s. According to commenter Saturday's Child, it was built as a Thrifty Mart around 1969 and then became a Food Town, staying with that chain when they switched their name to Food Lion.

After Food Lion left, it was a UPS call center and an operation called Spherion, possibly not in that order.

For the last several years it has been vacant, but as commenter William points out, the building is now being rehabilitated to become an AutoZone.

(Hat tip to commenter William)

Well, that didn't last too long.

Spunky's Auto Sales was the follow-on operation to Prestige Hitech Autowerks which moved down the street into the old Dick Dyer bodyshop. They opened sometime last fall (the picture I have is from October 2013) and lasted, I'm thinking, until last month (April 2014).

I continue to like the gull-wing lights at these old service stations. The roofline is nice too.

UPDATE 20 November 2015 -- This place has been extensively remodeled and is to become a gas station:

pix 8 August 2015

pix 16 August 2015

pix 23 August 2015

pix 12 September 2015

pix 18 October 2015

pix 6 November 2015

UPDATE 14 March 2016 -- Almost ready to open as King Fuel. It appears the store only needs to be stocked:

I noticed the other day that this car service center just east of Midlands Shopping Center was no longer in business.

The real-estate write up calls it "downtown Columbia", which seems a bit off to me.

There's a lot of land clearing going on in the Bluff Road area south of I-77 by Gills Creek, so I'm not sure how long this little wreck of a building will stay there, but apparently it was Bluff Road Paint And Body Shop. From the advanced state of decrepitude, it could have easily closed in the 1980s, but given that the sign is still there, I'll call it 1990s until I hear differently. Maybe I'll park and walk out to it as some point as well.

UPDATE 16 June 2014 -- A full photoset of a walk back into the property:

Here's an old-school, single island service station in Lexington. Just looking at it, I suspect it predates the BP era and probably goes back into the (original) Gulf age. This is the kind of place that used to exist to service cars -- which needed almost constant attention. Any thought to customer restrooms or any vending more elaborate than a soft drink machine was pretty much non-existent. Now, one by one they fall by the wayside as that generation of owners retires or they just can't compete against the new convenience store stations that use all the space that could have been bays to sell people stuff.

This one will be selling people Thickburgers soon.

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If this auto lot, just south of the New Brookland Baptist Church, had an office, it must have been in a trailer.

Seems like it would be a good place to sell Christmas trees, but it's too late for this year, I guess.

(Hat tip to commenter James)

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: