Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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:

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..