Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This building was home to Keller Williams Realty (KW Columbia, SC), who have now moved to 1 Harbison Way.

This LoopNet listing shows the building before demolition and indicates it was built in 2000, so it was not that old. This LoopNet PDF flyer indicates that before the demolition, both this building and the adjacent T-Mobile office at 128 Harbison were for sale. I guess there were no takers for this one.

What is interesting is that they are really basically just one building. There may technically be an additional wall between them, but they are going to have to work carefully to leave the T-Mobile building alone while knocking this one down. I should go back and see how it turned out.

Read the rest of this entry »

As far as I can tell, the official way to refer to this parents' chain is buybuy Baby with the two lowercase buys mushed together followed by an uppercase Baby.

Doing a bit of google work turns up surprisingly little about the specific troubles of this sub-brand. The parent company Bed Bath & Beyond, has been hit hard by retail changes in general, and COVID-19 in particular, and has published plans to shut down around 200 underperforming locations. This would leave about 1200 storefronts, so it is by no means an abandonment of the market. CNBC has stories on this here and here. Neither article specifically addresses buybuy Baby though the second one seems to include those locations in with the Bed Bath & Beyond locations.

The company itself is announcing buybuy Baby initiatives with words like renewed and expanding in the text to, at least, give the impression they still have faith in the brand:

'welcome to parenthood' is buybuy BABY's renewed promise to help make the transition to parenthood as seamless as possible and invites all customers into this new community—which is designed to support parents with the guidance and advice that's best for both them and baby.

buybuy BABY's renewed purpose is part of its parent, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., to transform the business around the customer as a digital-first, omni-always retailer. The Company last year introduced digital services such as Buy Online Pickup in Store and Curbside Pickup, along with Same Day Delivery, and continues to innovate to put digital purchases into the hands of buybuy BABY customers even sooner.

Be that as it may, *this* store in the old Circuit City location in Harbison *is* closing, and has started the final sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 15 June 2023 -- Apparently setting up to be a Planet Fitness:

This BB&T is on an outparcel of the Total Wine & More shopping center at the intersection of Harbison and Columbiana. I'm not exactly sure when they closed, but the last google review is from November of 2020, so I'm going with "Late 2020" until I hear differently. Although I do not have a BB&T account, I do have their Visa for the tenuous historical reason that a bank chain they once bought had a branch near my apartment in Fayetteville. It's always been well handled, and I don't think I've ever had the occasion to step into one of their branches. I certainly hadn't been to this one.

I believe this brings the number of fairly recent Harbison area bank closings to three, with this one, Region's Bank, and Wells Fargo.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 19 September 2022 -- The building is gone and apparently a carwash is setting up:

UPDATE 26 January 2023 -- The carwash is coming along:

I did a closing for the Dutch Square Ruby Tuesday back in May. At that time I took pictures of this one, on a Columbiana Mall outparcel, as well. Since, unlike the other, there wasn't any clarity that this one was permanantly closed, I held off doing a post.

I drove back by today however, and nothing has changed. The "temporarily closed" sign is still up, but at this point I suspect that is no longer accurate. At the least, it's worth a mention and if they re-open later great! In the meantime, chalk up another one for for COVID-19.

UPDATE 7 June 2021 -- Razed:

Steam & Ice seems to have been a coffee, smoothie, dessert & milkshake shop. Among other things, they were know for milkshakes topped with cotton-candy (which there is no way I can imagine liking, but your milage may vary), boba-tea, and acai bowls.

From what I can tell, they closed around January of 2020, so before the pandemic. Looking at the reviews, it appears that people liked it when it was open, but that there were ongoing staffing and early closing issues before the shutdown.

As I have mentioned before, my mother, who had a taste for the odd & exotic, used to stop in at Pier 1 from time to time while I was growing up. Since that time, I believe I have only been in a Pier 1 once, and I have never been in this Harbison location.

This store is in an outbuilding by the Outback wing of the Harbison Court shopping center, which I used to visit fairly frequently for Barnes & Noble.

The State has the story on the closing, mentioning that the retailer is closing about half of its 900+ stores. So, say, that's more than 400 locations, which is a pretty whopping number. The retail apocalypse continues..

(Hat tip to commenter JCB)

UPDATE 30 June 2020: Update tags

UPDATE 22 November 2021 -- Now a Popshelf:

I did not know that Lifeway was the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, which obviously is not going anywhere. They are, however, unable to keep these stores open during the ongoing great-unretailing, and plan to close all 170 of them. The plan is to maintain an online presence, though how that will work out I don't know given that Amazon certainly lists religious books.

This storefront is in an odd little plaza that wants to be connected to the one behind it, but isn't, making access harder than it needs to be.

Somewhat ironically, this store moved here fairly recently, previously having been on the other side of Harbison Boulevard.

(Hat tip to commenter JamesR)

The first seven (excellent) pictures here are provided courtesy of commenter Heath.

This Circle K location first stuck in my mind some years ago when I stopped and noticed that the Subway restaurant in the back was clearly built in what was once a automated car wash slot, complete with a guide lane now leading nowhere.

I am a fan of the current round of Circle K rebuilds. The new stores are attractive inside and not at all cramped, plus they have nice bathrooms, which works in their favor on long drives. My cousin was touting Florida's Wa-Wa stores at Thanksgiving, and I think that is the kind of thing the new Circle Ks are targeted at. Of course, some of the older plots won't be large enough to do it.

(Hat tip to lots of folks, possibly commenter Arthur was first. And big thanks to commenter Heath for the pictures!)

UPDATE 17 April 2019 -- Construction is continuing apace:

UPDATE 13 February 2020 -- Open again:

UPDATE 29 March 2023: Updating tags.

Here is another of Harbison Boulevard's Mattress Firm stores. It looks like they already have a new tenant, Rainbow, lined up, though I have no idea what that is.

I confess I have very little reason to go to Harbison Court anymore with both Barnes & Noble and Chili's being gone though I guess I did eat at Olive Garden once last year.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

This storefront is in that faux Tudor little strip of Harbision around the Bower Parkway intersection. Portrait Innovations listed in the 2018 phonebook, so I'm pegging the closing as this year. From what I can see Portrait Innovations is a national photography chain, and there is still apparently a store at Sandhill.