Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I have a vagure memory of stepping into Silver's once when I had walked down to Main Street on a sunny day back when I was living on campus in the early 1980s.

Even then, 30 years ago (and man it hurts to talk about the 80s being 30 years ago..), it was like stepping into another era of retail. I don't remember much about it other than it was a Woolworth's-like five and dime atmosphere, but without the modernizing touches Woolworth's (still mostly viable at the time) had added. On the other hand, I could be mistaken, since Loopnet claims the building was built in 1970, so it would have hardly have had time to get hoary by then..

The downstairs is available and doesn't look to have much happening inside, but the upstairs is luxury residences (here's one).

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I don't have much more to say about this Blockbuster (on Two Notch near Polo Road) closing that I didn't already say at the recent Decker Blockbuster closing, other than that this one is taking its own sweet time to wind things down. It seems like its been in "closeout sale" status for over a month now. (I say "now", I haven't driven by in a couple weeks, so it may in fact be gone at this point).

Meanwhile, I suspect we will see more Blockbuster closings here this year:

Blockbuster CFO Thomas Casey said closures of underperforming stores is supported by the fact that just 35% of Blockbuster stores generate about 80% of pre-tax earnings.

Speaking Jan. 12 at an investor event in New York, Casey said about 25% of a closed store’s revenue is transferred to other area Blockbuster locations. Blockbuster currently operates about 3,600 stores, with plans to shrink that number to 3,200 stores this year, while expanding Blockbuster Express kiosk operations.

“We’re pleased with the performance of our store-closing program,” Casey said.

UPDATE 5 October 2020: Changing the post title name from "Blockbuster" to "Blockbuster Video". Updating tags. Adding map icon.

It took me a while to figure out what this building was since I didn't get any street number in these pictures. I finally tracked it down through the realty sign, and find that this spot on Fernandina Road near the former Camping World and former Outdoor RV & Marine World was once Columbia Business Equipment.

It appears that sometime in 2005 they moved their Columbia operations to 5123 Bush River Road, and added a Charleston branch, leading them to take the now more appropriate name Carolina Busness Equipment.

Google doesn't pull up any other tenants at 3770, so apparently the building has been vacant for five years now.

I noticed when I was taking pictures of Granville's that the storefront across the street, Strobler Home Furnishings was vacant. I believe I've only bought one piece of furniture during my life so far, but as it happens I did note that their new store was up on Forest Drive back in September, since it moved into the old High Point Furniture Gallery (Pop's A&W Rootbeer back in the day..), though I hadn't realized Devine Street was the original location.

(Notice that their moving sign actually lists the wrong address: 4717 is Groucho's..)

UPDATE 11 Jan 2010: Added "AJ's" to the post title based on the comments.

UPDATE 5 Feb 2013: The right hand part of the building is now occupied by The Pilates Studio:

I've written about this building before, but it looks like it's about to go vacant again. It was always something of an odd fit to see mattresses in a store that was obviously a fast-food joint, but it was kind of endearing as well.

I'm not sure where Awesome is moving to, but whatever happens, Two Notch Road will not be bereft of mattress stores..

UPDATE 3 June 2010 -- Hola Mexico Mexican restaurant will be moving into the building:

Here's yet another of Columbia's (or West Columbia's in this case) former Eckerd Drugs locations, and like a number of former drugstores in the area, it's been re-purposed as a discount store, a Dollar General in this case. I didn't get any front-on shots because people were in and out constantly while I was parked next door at Walgreens, but it's the standard Eckerds look.

I'm not sure when the Walgreens went in, but its being there may have something to do with why this Eckerds did not continue life as a Rite Aid.

UPDATE 13 May 2011: Changed the closing date in the post title based on commenter Andrew's research.

UPDATE 10 August 2020: Add map icon, update tags.

PowerOne Computer Warehouse was a rebuilt PC store that I believe opened on Saturday 29 August 2009. I say that with some confidence, because I had taken a bunch of pictures of the nearby The Aquarium & Pet Shop on that day, and stopped in at PowerOne on my walk back over to Fuddruckers where I was eating lunch.

I found them in the midst of something of a mini-crisis because they had not intended to open on 29 August, but there was a printing error in all the flyers that were distributed in the paper forcing them to open several days before they were ready. This meant that almost nothing in the store had a price on it, and in many cases not even of description of the PCs processor speed, amount of RAM, OS version etc. It looked like they had some pretty good stuff in the store, but as I didn't really need anything, I didn't persue the prices of any the systems.

I don't know if the unplanned opening somewhat "wrong-footed" them as the Brits might say, but for whatever reason, they didn't make it to New Years.

I recall seeing Dugan's Sports Bar from time to time as a drove Bush River Road, but I don't know anything about it other than that it preceded PowerOne into the 1807 storefront.

UPDATE 4 Jan 2010: Commenter Jeff notes that home theater company Sound Advice was once in the space.

UPDATE 22 August 2012 -- It appears that the place is preparing to open as one of the many new (and controversial) "Internet Sweepstakes" operations in the Columbia area:

UPDATE 24 October -- Well the sweepstakes thing never happened; I believe the law came down on all of them before this one got opened. Anyway, it's Sissy's Furniture now.

I've never been great at video games, though I used to go to arcades pretty often. Galaga is my favorite, and the one I was/am best at, though that "best" was no great shakes on an absolute scale. I never did make the transiton from arcade games to computer/console/online games and so have never been in a store like Game Crazy. As far as I can tell from googling around, the chain has not declared bankruptcy or made the news for massive store closings, so I guess this closing can be chalked up to local conditions probably exacerbated by the recession in general. Now if they could only put some place you could get coffee and a snack in that little strip..

(Hat tip to commenter Jason)

UPDATE 28 Oct 2010 -- This place is nearly ready to re-open as a GameStop (In fact if they made the opening date promised on their sign, they are open now):

I like to eat lunch at the Schlotzsky's on the corner of Parklane and O'Neil Court sometimes, and the last time I was there, I noticed that several of the suites in the little corner strip it occupies were vacant. You would think that it's a visible high-traffic location, but I guess being near Columbia Mall isn't the draw it used to be.

If you click through to the large version of the picture, you can tell that there was originally some other writing between "G.G's" and "Flowers", but I can't make out what it would have been. I'm putting 2009 as the closing date here, but honestly I can't recall if I ever saw the place open or not. I guess florists don't really impinge much on my attention.

UPDATE 26 Feb 2011: Changed the title to give the full shop name "G.G's Artistry In Flowers" given in the comments, and in the main marquee for the Corner Shoppes of Parklane, which I somehow totally missed when I took the initial picture above. Here it is:

UPDATE 28 March 2011 -- It's now a We Buy Gold place: