Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Looking at the WikiPedia page for Forever 21 is somewhat involved, but the upshot seems to be the old story of growing too fast and getting ahead of their skis, and then trying to retrench with it never quite working out. At any rate, there is a bankruptcy in there, a surprising tie-in with Shein, and a current drastic downsizing which is to see 215 locations close by April of 2025.

This Columbiana Centre storefront is one of them, and the closing sale is well underway.

The maill itself seemed pretty busy, and reminded me why I very seldom set foot in one these days.

(Hat tip to commenter Mall Guy)

I noticed this place was boarded-up as I drove past, so I turned around and took a closer look. As far as I can tell from the Google reviews, Entity Motors closed up in the time frame of "a year ago", having received mixed reviews.

The place is a solid looking older style house that would be attractive with a bit of TLC, so perhaps some sort of professional office will move in eventually. The LoopNet information is here.

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I was turning around in a parking lot on Calhoun several weeks ago, and noticed that the business associated with it had moved.

Palmetto Biotech Prosthetics is now at 2419 Devine Street, and you can see their new building at the link.

Commenter Andrew pointed out that I totally uploaded the wrong pictures on my closing for the Woodhill Party City, where I mistakenly put pictures of this location. The right thing to do would be to upload the correct pictures to that post, but now that I am specifically looking for them, of course I can't find them. So I'm going to move that post back to draft until I locate (or retake) the shots, and move those pictures to here.

So, after saying all that, I don't have much more to add. This is another Party City closing as the chain shuts down. This one is in the part of Columbiana Station (which is actually two seperately managed parcels, I believe) which abuts Harbison Boulevard and is anchored by Target.

I had gone by this Party City around New Years I think, at any rate after the chain closing was announced, to get some pictures, but at that time it appeared to be in full normal operation. Now however all the closing signage is up.

This particular store moved here from Parklane in December 2022, so they have had around a two yaear run.

UPDATE 25 February 2025: Previously when I posted this closing, I had the wrong pictures (of the Harbison location). The pictures are now actually of the Woodhill location, and I am republishing the post.

UPDATE 5 March 2025 -- Here are the shots from 22 December 2024 that I couldn't find before:

GameStop has been up and down over the last few years. I think people are playing fewer games sold on media vs downloading, but in the other direction, there was a really crazy run up on the stock price a few years ago as well.

A YouTube Short claims this one closed on 14 January 2025, which I can't verify in any other media, but it is definitely closed now.

I'm guessing this might have been the new location for the Dutch Square GameStop which closed in 2010, but I don't really know.

To follow up on the Pelican SnoBalls post from 11 February: That store apparently started here, and moved up the street a few years later.

This Free Times article says it opened on 23 June of 2017, and looking at StreetView, it appears it probably moved after the 2021 snow cone season.

Here is the LoopNet information for the building.

Usually I can bring up *something* about a building via Google, but not in this case. In fact, looking at StreetView, it has apparently been vacant as far back as 2008. It's a bit of a shame as it's an interesting building with that odd rise on the left side and the stone roof facade over the rest of the front.

Ironically one of the hits I *do* see for it is this May 2016 press release about the "CEZ/City Of Columbia Vacant Abandoned Building Incentive Program (VABIP)". I'm thinking it was not one of the more successful civic efforts.

Here is the little that LoopNet has to say about the building.

If anyone knows what it was, I will update the post title to reflect that.

UPDATE 13 February 2025 -- As noted above, the post title here was originally just "Building" as I had no idea what it had been. Thanks to everyone's input I have updated that with a variety of names.

I like snowcones, but not enough to pay ice cream prices for them, so I have never sampled one of the several local Pelican's locations. Technically this store has been closed since the season ended, but the fact that it would not re-open was announced on 17 January. No specific reason was given in that story or this one, but I presume the volume was just not there.

I believe this is the second Main Street location for the franchaise with the former one being further down towards Eau Claire.

The chain maintains a number of other locations in the Midlands, so when things warm back up, you will be able to get your fix.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)