Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Well, that will teach me a lesson.

Reed's Jewelers was on the upper level of Columbia Mall, just out the door from Macy's heading towards Sears. I don't own any jewelery, but I do have a watch which needs a battery change about once a year. The last time it stopped running, I went by Reed's to have the battery replaced, and made the mistake of letting the salesman upsell me the "lifetime" battery change option. Sure it was a few dollars more, but they would continue to change it every year for the life of the watch at no additional charge.

I should have suspected that the life of the watch would be longer than the life of the store..

I've written about Waldenbooks at Columbia Mall, and the other book store at Dutch Square Browz-a-Bit, but I've not said anything about the Dutch Square Waldenbooks, which for several years was my main book store.

Waldenbooks actually had two different locations in Dutch Square. The first one was sort of odd in that it was behind the corner of the main corridor and the first crosswalk, but not on the corner. There were two entrances to the store. One was on the crosswalk corrider before coming to the corner (where the Great Steak & Potato Co is today) and the other was on the main corridor just below Tapps (now the theaters), but the actual corner, Steak & Potato slot was another store.

The main corridor also goes markedly up hill from the crosswallk to Tapps, so the Walden's was a split-level store. If you call the crosswalk entrance the "front" (and that makes sense as they later closed off the exit to the main corridor), then the front of the store was on the ground and the back of the store was built on a platform that was, I believe, two steps up from the ground. My main interest was the science fiction rack, which was parallel to the main corridor and butted up against the raised platform forming the back of the store.

For at least one year, possibly two, I would spend one afternoon a week in the Dutch Square area while my mother would take my sister to piano lessons a couple of miles away. I had only a $0.60 weekly allowance, supplemented by $3.00 for mowing the lawn, so any actual purchase was a matter of careful deliberation and agonized tax calculation and penny counting (though it certainly helped that mass market paperbacks were still under a dollar in those years). In my hour or so of time, I would sometimes walk down to Boardwalk Plaza to peruse the Book Dispensary, but mainly I would circulate between Walden's and Browz-A-Bit trying to make up my mind.

I have strong memories of some of the books I bought at this Walden's (and in fact still have the books themselves in most cases). I recall in particular getting all of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, one at a time, with awful 70s covers, and Pyramid editions of all of Doc Smith's Skylark and Lensman books (with bad [what was it with the 70s and loss of design sense?!] but better covers as well). Covers aside, I must have read each of those books at least 20 times.

I also liked the humor section though I rarely bought anything there. One book in particular made a great impression on me as a 13 or 14 year old. I was amazed that it sat right out there in the open, and always wished I had the courage to pick it up. Buying it was out of the question, of course :-)

Later when I could drive on my own, Columbia Mall became my book hangout of choice what with Walden's on one end and B. Dalton on the other. I sort of lost track of the Dutch Square Walden's. I did know they had moved down the main corridor from their original location. The reason I heard was that the split-level store was not ADA compatible, but I don't know if that is true or not. At any rate, I found their new location less interesting than the original. What with that, moving out of town and the advent of "big box" bookstores, I doubt I was in the new store more than a dozen or so times. I didn't even hear about it when the store closed.

After Walden's, Fashion's Unlimited went into their slot, and I find it amusing to see how they stock the men's dress shirts in the old Walden's magazine display rack.

I've never really been in the market for a wig, but I have noticed this store on Beltline between Two Notch and Farrow off and on over the years. The name never really registered with me, but this time when I saw it closed, I finally made the connection with the store which took over the Two Notch location of Floor It Now -- I'm pretty sure it moved from here to there.

Guess you could say it flipped its wig..

UPDATE 27 Feb 2013 -- It's now One Love convenience store:

(The State 15 April 1973)

To the best of my memory, I had never been on Atlas Road until last month when I was looking for that huge flag that flies by I-77 in-between Bluff & Shop Roads. After finding Atlas Road back there, I recalled some comments in "Have Your Say" to the effect that Boozer Lumber had been located there, so I went back later to take a look.

I had heard of Boozer Lumber over the years but really had no idea where it was or how big a place it had been. The complex is huge, and appears to have taken in at least three related Boozer enterprises. I didn't notice any "for sale" signs on the lots, and the company web page seems to imply that the site is still owned by it. It will be interesting to see what happens to the property in the future.

I've never seen the appeal of birds as pets. Herman the parrot was fascinating to me as a kid, but in my mind he was a pet store fixture -- I had no desire to take him home. Parking your car under the wrong tree will illustrate possibly the main reason I feel that way, but different squids for different kids. Parrot Phernalia was a store for those who do like birds, and I would notice it from time to time as I would cut over from Bush River Road to Harbison Boulevard and I'm pretty sure I saw it open very recently. This real estate listing suggests the storefront was built in 1970, so I'm sure it has been other things as well, but I don't recall anything from before Parrot Phernalia (certainly there was nothing with a more memorable name..). Anyway, I guess Polly will have to look elsewhere for her cracker!

UPDATE 9 June 2009:

I turns out this place has moved and is still in business, and sounds like a really nice place (though I still have no desire to have a bird!) -- by all means read The State story found by commenter Kc.

Also, I've added some of the building's previous incarnations to the post title line.

When the sun is just right, you can look at the "tower" at the north-west corner of St Andrews Center and almost read the outlines of the lettering that has been taken down from the top. If you actually could read it, it would say The Clusters of Whitehall.

The way I remember it, at one time, The Clusters of Whitehall was a very tony place. It seemed to me that many of the shops had radio ads on the old WIS radio, and when the announcer would sonorously intone "...located in The Clusters of Whitehall", it sounded as though he might as well be saying "...located on Rodeo Drive".

Times change and areas go up and down. Saint Andrews Road as a whole has certainly seen better times, and The Clusters were really convienient neither to I-20 nor I-26 as traffic in the area increased and more stop-lights were added. By the 1980s, The Clusters were in decline.

I'm not really sure of the original store roster (we rarely went to that side of town at all) but I think they had a Fresh Market as sort of an upscale anchor. This report says that as of December 2000, The Clusters were only 55% occupied and that a new call center and Tuesday Morning would bring them up to 94% occupied. It also gives a partial list of former stores: Heavenly Ham, Nocturnal Home Diagnostics, Gregory's To Go, Gold Leaf Gallery and Avant Gardener.

After that, google turns up another hit for the property being sold to Ziff Properties Inc in April 2006. There is another story from The State that was widely linked, but is no longer generally available. There is enough text left in the google hit, however, to say that by May 18 2008, the place was being referred to as "the former Clusters of Whitehall", leading me to guess that the new name St Andrews Center was probably coined in 2007. Currently while the place doesn't appear in any terminal distress, it is obviously now a lower rent type operation than before with correspondingly lower expectations for the quality of tenants and level of occupancy.

Finally, I was always confused about The Cloisters of Whitehall vs The Clusters of Whitehall. I haven't made a deep study of the matter, but my googling for this post suggests that the Cloisters is a real-estate subdivision in the area while the Clusters was the mall.

UPDATE 27 January 2023: Adding tags & map icon, adding the full street address in the post title.

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Here's another Eckerd's that didn't survive into the Rite Aid era. This one is at the intersection of North Main and Sunset Drive and is now a Family Dollar. Not related to the store, but I've always disliked this intersection because just after it crosses Main, Sunset narrows to one lane with very little warning. I move into the left lane before crossing, but it seems as though someone always gets caught by surprise and wants to merge suddenly into my lane.

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

This closing is "ripped from the headlines". Well, OK -- "I noticed an article an article in The State" is a less dramatic way to say it, I suppose. Both of Columbia's S&K stores are to close due to the chain's ongoing bankruptcy. I'm not sure when the stores will actually shut their doors but we're at the end of May, so June seems like a safe bet.

I drove down to the Two Notch store in Sparkleberry Square today, and everything is 30-50% off. Belts, in particular, are 50% off, so I picked up a fairly nice one. The place has not yet really been picked over -- I'm sure that will come as it did for the nearby Circuit City.

UPDATE 2 March 2011: Fixed incorrect placement of the store in Sparkleberry Crossing rather than Sparklebery Square.

I wrote about this storefront before as Parkland Pharmacy. CVS was the successor to Parkland and made what was a rather interesting and quirky pharmacy into yet another chain drugstore.

I'm not a big fan of CVS in general -- for some reason they never seem quite as nice as Rite-Aid or my preferred store, Walgreen's. They do have a nice "no scent at all" liquid laundry detergent though, and this store was fine for what it was.

They have left Parkland Plaza for the new corner lot across the street opened up by the demolition of the Cinderella HoJo. When I took these pictures, there was no indication of what, if anything, would come to occupy this spot. Parkland Plaza is already hurting; they certainly don't need a longterm vacancy here.

UPDATE 24 June 2009: The move is complete, and the CVS is now open at the old HoJo site:

UPDATE 29 Oct 2010 -- To date nothing has moved into the CVS spot at Parkland Plaza:

UPDATE 4 July 2022: Update tags, add map icon.