Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

I believe this building was built for the office supply chain OfficeMax, or at least that's what was in the storefront when I first became aware of it. Remington College moved in sometime around 2009, when the first picture above was taken.

I noticed about a week ago that the signage at the road and on the building had come down, but I'm unable to find any thing in the local media about it. The Facebook page for this location has entries up through Thanksgiving 2020, but no note about closing the campus. The main website for the school doesn't mention Columbia as a campus, though Wikipedia still does.

UPDATE 28 January 2021: Add Big Star to the post title based on the comments.

OfficeMax was the odd man out in the Office Depot/Staples rivalry. It was a perfectly fine office supply store, but apparently, at least in the South Carolina market, there wasn't room for all three chains, and OfficeMax started shuttering its local stores. The chain does continue on in other markets.

Wikipedia says that at one time OfficeMax was owned by K-Mart, which perhaps explains the location of this store in the K-Mart parking lot at the intersection of Dutch Square Boulevard and Bush River Road. I shopped at this location a number of times for non-descript stuff. I do remember when they had their going-out-of-business sale, that I picked up a good deal on a paper shredder.

Given the current state of K-Mart, I suppose the drama of this location is not What will go into the OfficeMax location?, but Will this K-Mart survive?. Given the recent opening of a super Wal-Mart a few blocks down the street, I'd have to say that's questionable.

UPDATE 30 April 2009:

It's now the Columbia Campus for Remington College:

UPDATE 11 March 2011: Update the closing date based on comments here. Also added full street address.

UPDATE 26 January 2021: Adding map icon and updating tags.