Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I was driving along Two Notch near Beltline the other day and noticed a For Sale sign in front of Auto Zone, and at first thought that large space had been vacated. In the event it was a much smaller storefront next to Auto Zone in the strip.

As far as I can tell, Grand Divas Hair Salon occupied this address until sometime in 2008 when they moved out to 5350 Farrow Road (where they still are as of the Feb 2012 phonebook).

Carolyn's Flower & Gift Shop was listed on 3306 Millwood Avenue while Grand Divas was here, moved in when they left, and then last year, moved back to Millwood at 2917 1/2 Millwood Avenue (2917½ Millwood Avenue).

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The Lexington location of Educational Wonderland was on Columbia Avenue right next to Mi Pueblito / Mi Casa. The way the storefront looks almost makes me think it was a theater at one time, but I don't see anything resembling a ticket-window. This location is still listed in the new (March 2012) phonebook, so I'm assuming that it closed in 2011 (sometime before November, when these pictures were taken).

Educational Wonderland seems to be a school supply operation that caters mainly to the homeschool market and is now headquartered at Boozer Shopping Center. According to this old index to their site, in addition to the Lexington location, they also had a Dentsville location at 2400 Decker Boulevard, the site of the original WXRY radio station.

There are some adjectives that I never know what to make of when they are used in advertising or business names. Certified is one such. Are they certifying that the objects on their lot are indeed cars? It's sort of like those dodgy collectible items with a "certificate of authenticity" as if that couldn't be faked as well as the item.

At any rate, Certified Cars Online, Inc. seems to have been the last tenant in this apparently revolving-door lot on Sunset Boulevard between I-20 and Target. The one review I see for Sunset Tattoos indicates that it was in business as of 2008, and I'm guessing the other car operations before Certified came after that. (It's possible that some of them (Enterprise for instance) were run concurrently with Certified).

Here's an archived copy of the Certified site on the Internet Wayback Machine.

It appears the closing note could be taken as a confession of sorts, though I doubt that's how it was meant..

UPDATE 18 July 2013 I'm guessing that when I listed Enterprise Rent-A-Car in the post title above, I had googled the address and had that come up as one of the hits. As it turns out, that was something still in the future for this site at the time. Now Enterprise has made the move from 5184 Sunset, and is in operation on this lot now:

The Kitty's Hallmark location at Trenholm Plaza was in exactly the opposite situation of that of their Dutch Square location. In the Dutch Square case, the mall would have been glad for them to stay on, but given the current state of the mall, it didn't make business sense for Kitty's. In the case of the Trenholm Plaza store, Kitty's would have gladly stayed, but according to The State the mall owners think they can lease the slot out at a higher rate. That remains to be seen as I believe there is already a vacancy on that side, but in general they have been successful in "upscaling" Trenholm Plaza over the last several years. It's also an interesting issue with the plaza that it had two Hallmark franchaise stores almost next to each other as Books-A-Million also sells Hallmark items. Of course they have two grocery stores, two shipping operations, three banks and numerous restaurants, so duplication is not a *big* issue..

Anyway, this Kitty's was one of my go-to locations for birthday and christmas cards. While my all-time favorite line was the long discontinued Hallmark Lite brand ("One third less serious than regular greeting cards"), the Hallmark Shoebox line is almost as good, and I've certainly picked up a number there over the years. In the meantime, Kitty's maintains a number of other locations in the Midlands.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 24 August 2022: Updating tags and adding map icon.

You'll recall that we discussed the announcement a few months back about how Sears & Kmart have announced a round of store closings which largely left South Carolina stores (except for Sumter) untouched.

Well, I was recently in Fernandina Beach, and found that their Kmart is one of the ones which got the ax. The store is on Sadler Road, which is the first major connector between 8th Street (the bridge road onto the island) and the beach, an area which is in general doing *quite* well, with lots of new upscale shops (both there and on the other side of the bridge).

When I was growing up, Fernandina was still quite a small town, and this would have been a major blow. Now there is a Wal-Mart a few blocks away, and Target within a mile.

The store is still open for now, and while the inventory is starting to hollow out and the vacant space to spread (as in the Dutch Square Kmart) there is still while until the final days when the fixtures start to go..

UPDATE 10 October 2012 -- As these pictures from 5 August 2012 show, the place is closed and all the logos and branding is gone:

UPDATE 7 October 2019: Add map icon, update tags.

UPDATE 22 December 2021 -- The main part of this store is now a Bealls, and has been for a good while. The garden center part of the store is now an Eat The Frog Fitness, which is new within the past year:

This State story from 29 January 2012 says that Bath & Body Works

[I]s in the process of closing as its lease expires.

Which makes me fairly comfortable listing the closing date as 31 January 2012.

I've never stepped into a Bath & Body Works, as I don't have a lot of requirements for a bath other than soap, but I always had an impression that it was kind of a scrappy chain since the only two I was aware of were this one in Richland Mall and one in Inlet Square Mall in Murrells Inlet. Neither mall could be called prime real estate, but the stores hung in there for years.

The Richland Mall store was at the edge of the food court (which is down to one restaurant) and just past the old S & S Cafeteria.

Luckily, there are alternatives:

Scrappin' Creations is a scrap-booking operation that had a store at the Village At Sandhill right next to J.C. Penny. When I went by last week, it appeared that the place may now be a police office, or at least there was some sort of sign in there about police. (I didn't look real close because it would be awkward sticking my nose against the window and taking pictures if there were police in there looking out at me..)

Scrappin' Creations itself is still around and organizing events and trips. Their blog is here and they have a Facebook page as well.

(Hat tip to commenter Elizabeth)

(The pictures aren't that great -- I was shooting ISO 3200, when I could have gotten by with 1600 or even 800).

The State says that this Abercrombie & Fitch in Columbiana Mall shuttered on 14 January 2012 as part of a bad-economy driven process that has already closed the King Street store in Charleston, and will close the Greenville store this weekend (28 January 2012). [The Myrtle Beach store in Coastal Grand Mall will remain open for now].

A&F is not a store I've ever entered, though I was pretty sure they sell clothes, and a glance at their web site confirms that. The only association I have with the name is an old joke/shaggy-dog-story that I heard parts of in the 70s that ended with

You can call me X, you can call me Y, but you doesn't has to call me Abercrombie!

Apparently the mall will make good this loss when a store called Love Culture opens this summer. This is another clothing store, but apparently for women only. The current tagline on their site

On the hunt for cute clothes!

and the two somewhat campy, retro graphics suggest a fairly young demo.

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