Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

This little storefront in Sequi Center (almost across the street from the Sesqui State Park entrance) has obviously been a number of things over the years. A little googling turns up Second Debut which was a thrift shop, but the sign covered up by the Sew N Sew banner doesn't look like it belonged to a thrift shop (I could be wrong..) so I'm guessing there was another shop in between.

Commenter Miz T says that Sew N Sew was there at least two years ago, and that they were gone by mid January, so I'm guessing they probably left with the old year at the end of December.

(Hat tip to commenter Miz T)

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Originally, as I recall it, this was simply the Columbia Mall Theater, and opened about the same time as the mall itself. Compared to some of the other theaters in town, I don't have any really strong memories of the place. I know I saw what was pretty much the last 70s style Disney live-action movie there: The North Avenue Irregulars as well as one of Disney's periodic re-issues of The Jungle Book and the first run of The Rescuers Down Under. (Yeah, I like Disney). I also remember trying to go there for a James Bond flick, one of the later Moore ones, and finding it sold out, a pretty rare experience back then.

At some point after I moved out of town, the Mall started to decline, and the theaters actually went under (along with the nearby Capitol Centre Theater). After that, a company called Phoenix Theaters re-opened the theater, which was sort of their shtick "phoenix from the ashes"/"new theater from old". I can't find out a lot about them because every google search turns up theaters in Phoenix Arizona, but this might be their web site. If it is, they have downsized considerably. At any rate, I don't think the Phoenix incarnation lasted too long here in Columbia. I recall seeing one movie under that regime (they had the latest showtimes) and not being too impressed with the theater (or the movie as I can't now recall what it was).

After that, I think the theaters closed again, and remodeled along stadium lines, which was the latest gimmick several years ago (and is an improvement, I have to admit). I'm struggling to think of any movie I saw there after the conversion, and I don't think there is one -- by that time, I had switched mostly to Richland Mall and Forest Drive as my default theaters.

I've lost the hat tip for the commenter who pointed out this closure, and when they said it happened, but if you look closely, you can see a poster for The Darkest Hour a movie which opens on Christmas Day 2011, so it was very recent, and we can assume somewhat unexpected if they thought they would be showing that one.

UPDATE 3 July 2012 -- As the pictures below show, the place is now open again as Columbia Place Stadium Cinemas.

Getting ready to re-open (28 May 2012):

Open again (29 June 2012):

Surprisingly, given its location at the corner of Two Notch & Faust Street, this building was apparently once connected with a church or some sort of religious personage. I can dimly remember seeing the Merita store there, and Titlemax seems to have been the most recent tenant, showing up in the February 2007 phonebook, but not thereafter. According to Richland County the place is currently owned by Midland Holding Corp who are apparently trying to sell it.

The lot is also home to a 30 Sheet Poster billboard, and if you click that link, you can see the place with the Merita store in operation, and a different paint job.

Well, the relocation of this title-loan company from Arcadia Lakes Shopping Center answers the question of what will next go into the old Carolina First Bank building at Columbia Mall.

I'm not sure it's a more accessible location, but the building is certainly classier.

UPDATE 20 December 2011: Originally stated the name of the strip mall as Arcadia Lakes Plaza which was wrong. I have corrected it to Arcadia Lakes Shopping Center.

LoopNet says this rather nondescript little building on Two Notch near Covenant Road was built in 1970. I would have been in third grade, old enough in theory to recall what it was originally, but apparently my eyes totally slid over it for the first 41 years of its existence.

At some point though, it became the Tonya D Parks Nationwide. Judging by this comment from commenter Amanda they moved from here to the old Sandy's Escorts location at 5201 Two Notch in July of 2010.

Google doesn't give me much help on the E F Martin Co, telling me confusingly that it was either a "non bank holding company" or an auto repair shop.

This old-school Exxon on Two Notch near the I-20 interchange, and O'Neil Court is currentl Go Used Tires, but apparently that will only last until the sale of the building, which is currently on offer.

This is a classic look for an Esso/Exxon of that era. Here is a similiar one (which I believe stayed open longer) in Yulee Florida:

Hopefully the Two Notch building will not be razed, but given the age, I wouldn't bet on it.

UPDATE 5 December 2011: Added Esso to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 10 October 2016 -- The Two Notch building continues to deteriorate. I don't see how the next operation won't raze it. I also note the sheltered area looks to have been something of a homeless campout:

I have done a couple of other posts on this mostly dead strip mall on Two Notch at Polo called Park Centre. In particular, here is Piggly Wiggly / Harris Teeter (and Bruno's), and here is Pic 'N Pay.

Neither of those was the strip's main tenant however. That was initially Walmart and then after that, NetBank.

Of course everyone is familiar with Walmart and their gradual move to bigger "Supercenter" locations. That, I believe is what happened to this location: It was replaced by the Supercenter at 10060 Two Notch Road.

I was not as familiar with NetBank which moved in after Walmart moved, probably in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

To summarize the NetBank Wikipedia page, NetBank was an Atlanta/Alpharetta based operation which started as Atlanta Internet Bank and Net.B@nk before settling on the NetBank name. It was a very early venture into Internet banking and mainly made its money from mortgages.

It did quite well for a while, but eventually overextended itself and got into trouble as its core mortgage business started to fail (though this was a little before the main 2008 mortgage crisis). After flailing for a while, it decided to sell itself off to another bank, but found it didn't even have enough to bring to the table to pull that off and ended up being taken over by the Office of Thrift Supervision on 27 September 2007, becoming the biggest thrift failure since the S&L crisis of the 80s.

This site was a big enough part of its assets that it was mentioned in the Bloomberg article on its failure as part of the asset base to be sold off. After the takeover, the FDIC insured accounts were acquired by ING Direct.

According to commenter Soxinsc, Blue Cross/Blue Shield leased the NetBank space for a while, and there does still seem to be some sort of front desk with signs of use in there though I find it odd that the NetBank logo was never taken down if someone else did have the building..

I noticed recently that this place, next to the old Galaxy World arcade was vacant, but had no memory of what it was.

The sign was inside propped up against the window, but I didn't want anyone thinking I was fooling around with their car, so I didn't get out. Google says it was a party rental store, Thompson's Grand Rental Station.

I'm sure that wasn't the first tenant though. The building is another one of those buildings "of a certain age" in Columbia with rock facades, and the odd little bay-window nook on the back side looks as thought it may have been a drive-up window at some point.

According to my fuzzy memory, this little stretch of road, now elevated above Two Notch proper was once Two Notch itself before I-77 was cut through. I also think there was a little locksmith kiosk up there for a long time, even after Two Notch moved.

UPDATE 12 September 2012 -- It's now a Harley store:

and we'll be with you in a minute..