Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

There was a lot of back and forth in the comments about this move, but I believe commenter James R was the first to mention that Prestige Appliance on Sunset Boulevard was gone.

In fact though it was a move, not a closing, and they have set up business at 3905 Fernandina Road in the old Fireplace Center / Southeastern Stone building:

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

Commenter Patrica Lewis points out that Cycle Center in Spring Valley Commons is closed.

The sign explains that the location was rendered infeasible by the fire last October (2013) which did a lot of direct damage to the East wing of the plaza and indirect damage here.

Rebuilding is continuing on the east wing and Tripp's Cleaners and the storage facility have reopened.

(Hat tip to commenter Patricia Lewis)

Taboo is the follow-on operation to Taco Bell in this little store that sits beside Gills Creek on the tail end of Devine Street.

Like the taco cart downtown, the place is something of a victim to the City of Columbia's zoning zig-zags. Regardless of what you think of the place, they followed the rules in place at the time to open, and ever since then the city has been trying to undo that -- which they finally have done. The place has been in court fighting, but lost their last battle at the end of September.

With the upscaling of the area, I don't see a future for this building, and would not be surprised if the next tenant took it down.

UPDATE 7 January 2020 -- This post turned out to be a false-alarm (one of many for the store). Here is a 2018 false-alarm, and Here is the final 2019 Closing. Also adding a map icon.

This little convenience store on Two Notch just up from Cedar Printing has been vacant for a good while now. I believe it was connected with the adjacent ABC store. The strip as a whole is called R & D Plaza and it is one of several little retail strips on this part of Two Notch.

The web site is still up, but it appears that fashion botique Rags & Bags With Style in the Food Lion / Rite Aid plaza on Decker is now gone.

I like the "look" of this plaza, which has a bit of a retro feel, probably because it actually is retro.

Well, learn something new every day. Googling this western and urban wear outlet on Decker yields the information that El Rey Leon, means The Lion King, something that make total sense once you stop to look at it closely.

Of course that just raises the further question as to how that phrase is supposed to suggest western wear, and the secondary question as to whether I should alphabetize this one under El or Rey. (Hmm, I see the phonebook uses 'El', so that's good enough for me..).

Well, this developed rather suddenly today. Commenter skysguy reported this early in the morning, and commenter Mr. Bo supplied this official link this evening: Belk's in Dutch Square is closing.

The chain is pitching it as doubling down on their Columbiana location, especially after getting extra space in the former Sears. However, they have had extra space in the Dutch Square store for *years*, and I believe if they had thought that store was viable, they could have re-opened the closed off spooky third floor (empty now except the hair salon and mens' room):

This closing pretty much puts the fork in the "mall" part of Dutch Square, and I would not be at all surprised to see the theater and Burlington closing their doors to the interior. (Office Depot already lacks interior access).

(Hat tip to commenter skysguy)

UPDATE 24 December 2014 -- All of the closing signage is up, and the store is half empty. If you want to buy some racks, step ladders, office chairs or nude mannequins, now's your chance. I'm not surprised fixtures aren't returnable, but I did find it a bit curious that regular merchandise is not returnable either, given we still have two local Belk's.

19 December 2014:

UPDATE 4 February 2015 -- The closure is complete:

UPDATE 10 September 2015 -- Interestingly, the building still isn't quite cleaned out:

UPDATE 7 November 2015 -- Here's a closing ad in The State:

UPDATE 10 April 2019 -- As mentioned in the comments, this is now a Planet Fitness:

Also adding map icon,updating tags and changing Belks to Belk in the post title.

You can sort of see Lane Bryant in operation at the Shoppes At Woodhill if you click-through and peer behind the trees in the first shot.

Judging from the 2014 phonebook, where they still list this location, this shop must have departed in the first part of the year. I've been over there several times to eat at Ci-Ci's, but I just can't remember as my eyes automatically skip over clothing stores. I was a bit surprised to see that this wing of the plaza has a Pelham Drive address, I would have expected all the buildings to piggyback off the Garners Ferry number used by the Panera wing.

Provisions opened in September 2013 and was a bulk food and spices store that also carried locally grown or produced foods. I admit that when it opened, I read the articles and couldn't see it lasting for long as it sought to serve a market I didn't believe existed. Of course I would have been happy to be wrong, but in the event they seem to have closed down sometime in the spring of 2014 -- I can verify that they were still open in February.

Five Rivers Market a small SC chain will be opening in the spot soon if they have not yet done so.

What with the recent talk here about Family Dollar closings and the ongoing buyout war over the chain, this store in Greelyville caught my eye as I was going to the beach back in July, and then again with the building vacant as I was going for Labor Day.

I don't know a lot about Greelyville except that one of my childhood babysitters was from there and that I have been driving through it for years. From the 60 through the 80s, the local high school always had some sort of clever message on their roadside marquee-board, but they seem to have gone generic lately. During the same time period, one of the local gas stations had cylindrical above ground gas storage tanks painted to resemble soft drink cans. The place was also home to one of the unfortunate sailors who lost his life in the huge gun explosion on the USS Stark in 1987, and is memorialized on a roadside plaque. There is also the marvelously named "Pearl Whack Park" on US-521 just before the tracks.

And on 29 August 2014, I saw one of the best rainbows ever driving through the area, unfortunately with nowhere to pull off and get a really scenic framing for a shot.