Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well this has been pretty ventilated in Have Your Say for a while now, but the Bi-Lo at Friarsgate Plaza will be closing soon. Unlike some of the other local Bi-Lo's, this one will apparently not be becoming a Harvey's.

Googling around, I see that a lot of other Bi-Los have closed recently as the chain continues to fare poorly, though I have always been happy enough with the stores whenever I happened to stop in at one.

In this particular case, the venue does not help as Friarsgate Plaza does not seem to be thriving. You can see one indication of such by looking at the plaza marquee, which continues to tout Monterrey, which featured in a closing here six years ago.

(Hat tip to commenter ED)

UPDATE 12 June 2017 -- Still open. Pretty picked over, but still some good staples. Mostly 40%off:

UPDATE 30 September 2021 -- Now a CubeSmart self-storage place:

Also updating tags and adding map icon.

I did not realize it, but Banana Republic is a sub-brand of The Gap and apparently both are in trouble. Though I have not found any news of a bankruptcy for the firm, they pulled out of the U.K. and have struggled with badly declining sales, leading to a number of store closures:

As consumer shopping habits have moved increasingly online, Banana Republic has struggled to carve out its niche to drive customers through the door. The biggest problem for the brand is its lack of clear, unique identity -- coupled with the rise of fast-fashion competitors like H&M, Zara, and Forever 21, said New York-based retail consultant, Bob Phibbs, CEO of Retail Doctor.

“The reality is no one has figured out who they are,” he said. “Gap is [a] forgettable brand, and that spills over to Banana Republic...they need to cut the number of SKUs, cut the number of employees, and justify why I should pay $90 for a shirt with something compelling and interesting.”

As an added tidbit, while I was googling around for Banana Republic, I came on the news that Gymboree may go Chapter 11 and close 350 stores. Brutal times in retail indeed.

(Hat tip to commenter Em)

Based on news from commenter Jason, I went out to Columbiana Centre to get some pictures of Bebe. By the time I got there, I found it already closed and with a mall promotional display in the windows.

Bebe is the latest retail casualty in a year that has been pretty brutal. Their original plan was to close only 28 stores, but in the event, they ended up deciding to close all 168 by the end of May 2017. According to this list, the Columbiana store was the only one in South Carolina.

So I guess the old question, "Bebe or not tobe?" is now answered..

Well, this is Columbia's other H. H. Gregg, closing as part of the same liquidation as the Sandhill store. Goody's is the most prominent former holder of this spot -- I'm not sure who could take on this much floor space now.

I took these pictures a few weeks ago -- I'm working on the assumption that this place is now closed.

At any rate, this closing is part and parcel of the bankruptcy described in this post.

I wonder what "Acorn" is..

These are admittedly not great pictures, but you get the picture. I noticed some time ago that this longtime Two Notch Road staple had closed, but somehow just got around to getting some shots a few weeks ago.

There used to be a numbe rof little open air markets in the Two Notch and Dentsville area, but I think this was the last of them. As you can see from the little placard behind the fence, they were part of the Certified SC Grown branding for roadside markets, and in fact you can still see their page on the SCDA website, which doesn't seem to notice that they are gone and helpfully explains:

Primary Products Sold: Tomatoes, corn, string beans, bell pepper, okra, cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, squash, Kentucky Wonders, green peanuts, strawberries, peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe, plums, blueberries, and honey.

I don't have any phonebooks to hand to pin a closing date here, so I'm going to guess 2015.

UPDATE 22 April 2017: Changed closing date from "2015" to "Fall 2016" based on the comments.

UPDATE 7 June 2017 -- Now open as Sara's Produce:

I was sure I had done a closing for 230 Forum Drive before, but looking at Alphabetical Closings, I don't see anything.

At any rate, H. H. Gregg is the latest casualty of the ongoing Amazon-era retail meltdown. With the closing of Circuit City, I thought that the appliance & electronics big box market would be able to support the two remaining stores, Gregg and Best Buy, but in the event I guess not. For that matter, it still remains to be seen if *one* store is sustainable long term.

I believe this is the only H. H. Gregg I have ever been in, and I was only in it once. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just checking it out, and as I recall, my impression was that I liked Best Buy better.

Here is a very interesting article from The Indianapolis Business Journal about this Indianapolis based company, its storied history, and the path to bankruptcy this March 7th and then quickly after that, the slide into liquidation:

In the early 1980s, when Detroit-based appliance retailer Fretter Inc. entered Indianapolis and challenged HHGregg on its home turf, HHGregg bought full-page ads in the Detroit newspapers hawking its own merchandise and offering free shipping.

Those were heady days for HHGregg, which built a loyal following in Indianapolis with an unwavering focus on customer service; an army of well-paid, full-time commissioned salespeople; and an avalanche of advertising that resonated with consumers.

It was a winning formula for founders H.H. and Fansy Gregg, who opened the first store at 4930 N. Keystone Ave. in 1955, and for the family members who helped build the chain to more than 200 locations in the decades that followed.

“The customer-first attitude came from Mr. and Mrs. Gregg,” said Ken Beckley, an HHGregg executive from 1983 to 2001 who also was the face of the company’s advertising. “When I was there, we preached to employees that job No. 1 is to take good care of the customer. If you do that, profits will follow. We never put profits first. We put customers first, and it paid off.”

The strategy helped fell a long list of rivals—including Fretter and Highland Superstores Inc., another Detroit chain that dove into Indianapolis in the early 1980s. Both firms later skidded into bankruptcy, with a Highland executive calling Indianapolis its “Death Valley.” In 1998, Circuit City Stores Inc., then a retail powerhouse, arrived in Indianapolis, only to land in liquidation a decade later.

Now, done in by a long list of problems—including overexpansion and a collapse in sales of consumer electronics, once its biggest business—HHGregg is joining the trash heap of failed appliance and electronics retailers.

The company’s demise has been unfolding in slow motion for years, but the final unraveling came with breathtaking speed.

Reminds me of Hemingway's famous quote.

Aside from Gregg, this can't be very good for Sandhill either.

Well, the last time I drove out to Sandhill, I got a picture (above) of the vacant Wet Seal storefront so that I could add it as an update to the Wet Seal post, which I distinctly remembered making..

Except that apparently never happened..

So anyway, Wet Seal has closed. The teen retailer went into bankruptcy in 2015, and never really made a go of it again after coming out. Business Insider has the story. The final closing was announced on 20 January 2017, and the first pictures were taken on 29 January, so I would suspect the end came for this store in early or mid February.

Somebody has bought the web site, but it's not clear exactly for what.

Given the amount of unleased space like this in Village At Sandhill proper, I was surprised to still see new buildings going up, as was discussed briefly in the comments for Family Christian Stores.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

Well, as has been noted in Have Your Say a good many times already, Family Christian Stores is closings all of the chains stores and going into liquidation.

USA Today has a good overview, and Gleanings has a bit more detail and Christian business community focus.

I had thought I recalled that this chain started as Zondervan (who once had a store at Columbia Mall though I never did a closing), and these articles confirm it. The Zondervan brothers founded the business in 1931, giving them an 85 year run, which is certainly not bad. In 2012, the current management brought out the already money losing business and reorganized as a non-profit, but even on that basis the cash flow was not enough, and the chain filed for Chapter 11 in 2015, but even with shedding a lot of debt, the re-organization never was able to stay above water and apparently a lot of the debt shed was owed to small enterprises which could not afford to stay in business without the owed payments, so a bad situation all the way around.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew I think)

Amusingly, one of the google search suggestions that came up as I was typing this address was "convert to decimal". (Which would be 22 for those who care..)

Anyway, here's another phone store on the move. This one from this building to a brand new building constructed after the demolition of the former buildings at 10202 Two Notch.

(Hat tip to commenter mike)

UPDATE 27 March 2017 -- The new location: