Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

The sign on this former Bank of America branch dates the closing to 8 April 2011, but if I hadn't seen that, I could have almost sworn I used this ATM several months after that. At any rate, I certainly didn't notice that the place was gone until this week. (And it has been gone long enough that the grass is unkempt, and the building starting to deteriorate [though someone is still tending the flowers in the sidewalk patch]). The building is on an odd triangular shaped lot at the sharply angled corner where Millwood Avenue hits Devine Street, and as I recall, it could be a chore to get in and out of, depending on where you were coming from and trying to get to.

I'm not sure why the branch was closed, but from what I can tell of the news, Bank of America in general continues to be in a pickle due both to bad luck and bad practices during the run-up and aftermath of the housing boom. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what goes in here. It might be a nice place for a restaurant as this stretch of Devine doesn't really have any.

UPDATE 13 March 2014 -- It's to be a Dunkin' Donuts, the sign was going up today:

Well, I admit I'm drawing a blank here. This building is in the 1200 block of D Avenue in Triangle City (just a bit up and across from the old Goodyear location. Whatever it was, it is, as you can see now, pretty thoroughly gutted.

When I took these pictures, I thought it would be easy to identify when I got home. In the event though, there appears not to be a street number on the building, and my fallback of finding the Grubb & Ellis listing for it, which I thought would be easy given their big sign, fails as well. Google Streetview shows two business storefronts in it, but won't zoom close enough to read the marquees and won't give the right street number. Anyone know? I'll update below and in the post title when I get more information..

UPDATE 20 July 2011:

OK! With help from the comments this building is identified as Fogle's Food City and Furniture Farm. The actuall address of the building is 1212 D Avenue, which is a higher number than I had thought. This LoopNet listing also makes clear that the building is much larger than I had thought with what must have been the main parking lot facing 12th Street. I will have to go back and take pictures of the 12th Street and C Avenue sides of the building.

The Secretary of State's office says that Fogle's Food City, Inc. was incorporated on 2 January 1970 and dissolved on 21 June 1996. Of course it's possible that the actual grocery started before that as a sole proprietorship or some other form of organization. It's also possible that it closed before the corporation was actually dissolved. At any rate, Furniture Farm ("Where Prices Are Born.. Not Raised") was already listed in the February 1997 phonebook. I'm not sure when it closed as my home phonebooks jump from Feb 97 to Feb 07, but it was not listed as of February 2007.

I've changed the post title from "Building" to reflect this information, and have fixed the street address as well. Thanks folks!

UPDATE 17 October 2011: Added Shumpert's to the post title based on info from commenter Becky Dodson.

UPDATE 5 April 2012 -- The place continues to deteriorate and has now been officially condemned. You can see that the roof is completely gone in spots and that the whole place has been flooded during the recent rains (it's a bad sign when your building leaks to the outside rather than the outside leaking into your building..). I also finally got some shots of the other side with the old Furniture Farm signage:

UPDATE 22 April 2012 -- Well, looks like that's it for this building!

UPDATE 7 May 2012 -- All gone:

Today's closing comes from commenter IrmoJeff who says:

Hey Ted…Junior Apprentice Closing Spotter, 2nd Class IrmoJeff checking in :D

I thought i’d toss this out there, in case you are ever out towards Irmo/Balentine again. 8027 Broad River Road is the address of a little triangular piece of land that sits at the intersection of Broad River Road and Woodrow Street, sort of just behind where Tez’ used to be. I drove by there the other day, and it looks like whatever business was in there most recently is closed up. I became aware of the building when i was just out of high school in the early 90’s when a friend of a friend opened Smokey Joe’s BBQ. Im not sure what was there previously, but i dont think Smokey Joes was the original occupant. The owner used to joke that he couldnt afford to charge me a flat rate for the all you could eat buffet, that he would have to weigh me going in and coming out :). Anyway after Smokey Joes closed, it was a catering business (or possibly a restaurant) for a while, run by the Catering By Dupre guy i’m pretty sure. I’m also pretty sure Dupre was somehow involved in Smokey Joes, possibly a silent moneyman or something. After that i lost track, but a quick Googling found all these businesses associated with 8027 BRR:

Bill Hinson Auto Sales
Clayton’s Cars
Irmo Properties
Palmetto Glass
Columbia Credit Corp (listed as 8025 BRR)

Im also pretty sure i remember a flower shop, or maybe a gift shop there at one point. I also thought i remembered a car title place there at one point, but i could possibly be confusing it with the Columbia Credit Corp.

I added this pic to clarify which building i was talking about

http://i54.tinypic.com/23izbyu.jpg

I actually did take some pictures of this place in April of 2009 (I know from the date of some other pix from the same day) but appear to have deleted them somehow. As I had no idea what the place had been, I didn't keep good track of them.. I'm pretty sure however that the roof of the building was intact at the time or it would have stayed in my mind. Likewise, the picture that IrmoJeff links above shows the roof intact (but has no EXIF date tag). Given that the roof is currently not intact, I suspect that the incoming Hickory Point convenience store will knock the building down, or at least it doesn't make sense to me to leave a building you hope to salvage open to the rain.

As to the two addresses: The lefthand door is labelled "8025" while the righthand door is labelled "8027". I don't have a guess which address goes with the existing outbuildings.

(Hat tip to IrmoJeff, obviously)

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I have to say that the mascots for AAA Automotive are a pretty rough looking bunch. The middle one reminds me of a buffed up version of the boss elf from Rudolph, the one that didn't want Herbie to be a dentist.

I see various versions of the Goodyear name when googling this Triangle City address at the corner of 12th Street & D Avenue in West Columbia including the version I used, Goodyear Auto Service Center, as well as Goodyear Tire & Rubber and Goodyear Gemini Auto Care. Mr. Shine seems to have been a carwash operation, and during either the Goodyear or AAA days the place apparently rented U-Haul trailers as well.

It appears that the building was on the market at one point, but LoopNet says that's no longer the case, and indeed the real-estate sign out front offers to lease rather than sell.

(Hat tip to commenter tonkatoy)

Here's a nice square little brick building at the corner of Frink and James Streets in Cayce. You can read the sign on the door if you click through to the high-res version, but the gist is that this beauty shop moved to 1816 Frink Street. Now, I find Salon 2000 listed at 1816 Frink in the February 2007 phonebook (one of those I have without going to the library), but not afterwards, so a) I guess this place could have moved any time before that, and b) apparently it did not last too long there. (There is also a Salon 2000 currently listed in Forest Acres, but since they were both listed in the Feb 2007 book, I don't think they are the same).

Notice the nice graphic of the lady's head in the last picture. The one you are probably looking at is actually a shadow cast by the one painted onto the window. It's a nice effect:

Update 25 November 2012 -- As mentioned in the comments, the windows are now boarded up:

According to their home page, Data Resources Inc is an environmental consulting lab. Also Also according to their site, they moved to 1410 Saint Andrews Road back in January.

The were founded in 1986, and just looking at this building, I think it may have been built then for them as it does not look like a re-purposed office or retail location, and doesn't look much older than mid-80s. Their new location is on Saint Andrews East of Broad River Road, a section I don't believe I've ever driven down.

UPDATE 12 July 2011: Well, I was wrong, it apparently has been several other things, including Duff's buffet and a fitness center.

When the The Sheraton on Bush River opened, it was a big deal, and for many years it was certainly an impressive landmark designating the edge of town as you came in from Georgia on I-20. (Now of course the metro area sprawls out past the Lexington exits). Of course since I actually lived in Columbia, I never found a reason to stay at the hotel, and even to visit the restaurant would have been a long drive from Forest Acres, but I always imagined it as a "swanky" place. Thinking about it as an adult, I'm not sure I really understand the concept. It's been my experience in going to conferences that conference hotels are normally built in a downtown, or at least fairly dense suburban area such that there are restaurants and nightclubs for the attendees to go to in the evenings, especially those who took taxis from the airport and want something within walking distance. That pretty much describes exactly the opposite of this spot.. Columbia as a conference destination is a pretty hard sell anyway, but this isn't exactly The Vista (which granted didn't exist as such in the 70s, but there certainly were spots with nightlife..).

Anyway, The Sheraton operated as such until, I believe, the early 2000s. Certainly it still did in 1996 when they would have bought the ad for the February 1997 phonebook pictured here. After that, the hotel reflagged and was operated as a Radisson as shown in this year's (February 2011) phonebook until June. The new flagging is for DoubleTree by Hilton, a brand that I can't really place on the hotel ladder. I'm guessing they don't have a Dance Factory.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)

UPDATE 11 July 2011 -- Originally I led with this drawing, which I believed was the Sheraton on Bush River, but it appears instead to be another ex-Sheraton, on Assembly Street. I have edited the text claiming that, and moved the picture down here for those who already saw it and commented on it:

This LoopNet listing says that this building on the South side of Frink Street west of 12th was originally a grocery, and that is especially clear in side views. I don't know what chain it was, but the LoopNet statement that it was built in 1995 looks wrong to me -- I would put it in the 1960s.

Since then it has apparently been a lot of things: Two different churches, a construction company, a bingo parlor and a cellphone store. It is currently vacant, but as you can see, there is a building permit in the door, so presumably it will soon undergo yet another incarnation.

UPDATE 6 July 2011: Changed the post title from "Grocery" to "Piggly Wiggly" based on the comments. Also added "Ace Hardware" to the list of tenants.

UPATE 5 June 2014: Added Red & White to the post title based on the comments.

I was Shoppes At Woodhill this afternoon, and noticed that Hair Tamers next to Qdoba was gone. I am over there fairly frequently, and think I would have noticed it before if it weren't pretty recent, but I can't say for sure (especially as my eyes tend to slide right over beauty shops).

I have to say that the name itself conjures up the image of Bugs Bunny fighting the hair monster ("Gossamer"):

UPDATE 30 June 2011: Commenter gary says they have moved to Landmark Square so I have added "moved" to the post title. I'll try to get a picture at some point.

As reported by The State this venerable hotel at the corner of Main & Lady Streets will be converted into a upscale condo called The Palms with 54 "resort-style" units. They will also have a view of what is apparently the only pool on Main Street.

Given that the article talks about the developer struggling to find financing for the project for several years, and the fact that the Rodeway Inn is listed in the Feb 2011 phonebook, I can only guess that the developer owned the property and continued to run it as a hotel until things came together. I admit to being surprised how long it lasted as a mid-to-lower-mid market motel in an area that if it gets anyone (after all who in the general population wants to visit Columbia and stay on Main Street?) would get high-roller business and government connected types.

(Hat tip to commenter Tom)

UPDATE 26 May 2012: Here's a State article on the opening of The Palms.

UPDATE 9 October 2024: Add map icon, update tags.