Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This address on the North side of Shakespeare Road near Columbia Mall and almost across from Wood's Wonderland was once, according to the Secretary Of State's office Howard & Riley Real Estate & Insurance. That would have been back in the late 1960s and 1970s.

However, LoopNet says the current building wasn't built until 2005, so there must have been an older structure there at one time. (This would have been the Pink House era on Shakespeare). I don't know what the property was used for in the interim, but the last tenant was Heritage Elictrical, which has apprently moved to Elgin.

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At one time this corner storefrong in Capitol Centre was one of my favorite restaurants Cucos Mexican Cafe. I believe it's been more since then than the two businesses I currently have on the post title, C & V's Sports Cafe and Elements, but that's all that google is coming up with for me now.

Anyway, I noticed on my last drive through that it is empty again, and is due shortly to become a Bingo hall.

This little storefront is right beside the Dentsville Best Buy and right across the Two Notch entry to the Columbia Mall perimeter road. In fact, this strip mall shares stoplight access to Two Notch with the perimeter, and it always seemed to me that when they built Best Buy they should have figured out some way to connect their parking lot with this one.

I think Tru Cutz was the last tenant here, as you can still see the word "Barber" superimposed on the window. On the other hand, I can't find a phonebook listing for them, and I can for Anointed who seem to have moved to Decker around 2011.

Here's a wholsale fashion costume jewelry outlet on Decker in the process of closing out. It's just a few units up from the old Columbia Import / Passion location.

This building, overlooking I-77 predates that road, and was originally Galaxy World video arcade.

I did a closing for Harbison Edwin Watts a few weeks ago, leading me to think the chain itself is in trouble. A bit of googling finds that this is, in fact, the case:

Edwin Watts filed for bankruptcy protection in November and later sold its assets to Hilco Merchant Resources and an affiliate of Worldwide Golf Shops for $40.8 million. Worldwide Golf Shops also owns Van's Golf Shops, Roger Dunn Golf Shops, the Golf Mart and other golf retailers.

Under terms of the sale, the new owners said they planned to close 42 underperforming stores. The other 48 locations, including the Tampa Bay area's other stores in Brandon and Palm Harbor, will continue to operate under the Edwin Watts name.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

Wow!

When commenter badger mentioned that the Columbia Mall outparcel Bakers Sports Pub & Grill appeared to be closed, I thought I might run over there after work to take a look. I certainly did not expect what I found.

On the east side of the building, things looked almost normal, but I noticed as I walked over from my car to the front door that part of the entrance was boarded over. Then I just figured that this was not a business related closing, but that probably they had had a fire. Looking in through the door though, there were no burned sections, just a lot of devastation.

Then I got off the porch and noticed the crime scene tape around the front and west side of the building. Then, walking around (outside the tape boundry..) I saw this:

Once home, a bit of googling established that it was exactly what it looked like -- someone had driven a pickup truck into the west side of the building. And furthermore, it was part of a police chase that saw the truck drive through *another* building, run over one suspect and leave the other suspect (the driver) shot dead by police. It's a pretty incredible story, and in fact I had glanced through it last week without making the connection with Bakers.

The State has a dramatic picture of the pickup truck after it hit the wall.

(Hat tip to commenter badger)

I'm not seeing them in any of my phonebooks, but from what I can tell online, the I. A. P. Company is the Irene A. Palmer Company and is involved in real estate. According to the Secretary Of State, the company was founded in 2003, and is still active.

At any rate, this Two Notch vacancy is in Tillman's Plaza just to the left of the old Book Dispensary / Books Revisited location.