Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

Judging by their Facebook and web site, HandPicked,Inc. looks to be a fashion, jewelry and Gamecock & Tiger store. Their Harbison location was in the Publix & Target part of Columbiana Station by Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and has now closed, apparently with the hope of opening at another Harbison area location at some point in the future.

In the meantime, they maintain a store in Lexington, and an online presence.

(Hat tip to commenter Ellen)

This men's clothing store has moved up Two Notch several blocks East, from this strip across from Columbia Mall to a storefront next to Nick's. As far as I can tell, the move came around June of 2021.

UPDATE 13 March 2022 -- Here is the new location:

I don't have anything more to say on this Stein Mart post than on the last one: They're bankrupt and going out of business.

This particular store is in the Books-A-Million/Food Lion plaza in Lexington and already had their closing signs up when I drove by a few weeks ago.

UPDATE 22 September 2021 -- Now a Spirit Halloween:

As noted by commenter Andrew and others, Stein Mart filed for Chapter 11 on 12 August 2020 and is expected to close most or all of its 281 stores across the country.

This story focuses on the Trenholm Plaza store, pictured above. A list of all of the announced store closings is here.

To the best of my recollection, I have never been inside this store, at least as Stein Mart. It is hard to say after so many years and upfits, but I believe this is the space once occupied by Tapp's Twig, a "smaller than a branch" storefront run by storied local department store Tapp's. If so, I would have been inside a number of times growing up.

Looking at the store closing list, I see the other local store is in Lexington, and I will try to get by before it is gone. In the meantime, the closing sale is already on, so we'll see if this location lasts into September.

(Hat tip to commenter Andew)

UPDATE 21 September 2021 -- Now a Spirit Haloween:

I don't think Victoria's Secret is officially bankrupt, but apparently a planned buyout fell through leaving the chain in desperate straits. Of course the COVID-19 crisis didn't help any either, and they are now in the process of closing 250 some stores.

This Sandhill location apparently closed in June as reported by commenter Bethany, but when I drove by then, the signage was still up, and the merchandise was still inside -- the "Lock the doors" order must have come down very quickly. When I got back in early July, the storefront was cleaned-out and blank.

I see from the label-scar that they were neighbors with a maternity store called Motherhood which pre-deceased VS and for which I never did a closing.

(Hat tip to commenter Bethany)

Catherine's dates back to at least 1960 and started in Memphis in 1960 when Catherine Weaver sold her Catherine's Stout Shop to Ralph Levy..

I remember the name Catherine's Stout Shop, so I suspect they must have operated under that label in Columbia when I was growing up. Along the way it seems there were a lot of buyouts and mergers, and the chain, now more gently named, is part of the Ascena Retail Group along with Lane Bryant & Ann Taylor. The group is now apparently considering Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. If they go that route, they are considering selling off Catherine's and two other labels.

As far as I can tell though, the closing of this particular store, on an outparcel in the Very's strip mall, had nothing to do with COVID, as they had time to adverise and hold a 40% off sale around February of 2020.

This place caught my eyes many years ago for an odd reason: The name Impress.

As it happens, I worked for many years with a brand of laser printer called Imagen (since bought out by QMS). We had many of these printers from a former contract, and used to deploy them on new contracts wherever a laser printer was wanted. Unfortunately, the printers did not support HP PCL or Adobe PostScript, they only supported their own proprietary page description language called.. IMPRESS, which very little software supported. In practice, we mostly had to use them in daisy-wheel printer emulation mode.

None of which has anything to do with this store, of course. As I said, it has been here for quite a while and is now running a final clearance sale, so if you need some prom formal wear, or a bridesmaid dress, now might be the time to go looking.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

I noticed this empty storefront in Boozer Shopping Center the other day. I know they were licensed for business here in 2014 but don't see any other information about this shop.

However, they were either a branch of a Greenville operation, or moved to Greenville, and you can see their colorful clothes here, here and here.

Well, the last time I drove out to Sandhill, I got a picture (above) of the vacant Wet Seal storefront so that I could add it as an update to the Wet Seal post, which I distinctly remembered making..

Except that apparently never happened..

So anyway, Wet Seal has closed. The teen retailer went into bankruptcy in 2015, and never really made a go of it again after coming out. Business Insider has the story. The final closing was announced on 20 January 2017, and the first pictures were taken on 29 January, so I would suspect the end came for this store in early or mid February.

Somebody has bought the web site, but it's not clear exactly for what.

Given the amount of unleased space like this in Village At Sandhill proper, I was surprised to still see new buildings going up, as was discussed briefly in the comments for Family Christian Stores.

(Hat tip to commenter James R)

Commenter mamarose notes the upcoming closing of Jack and Jane Sport in Trenholm Plaza.

I have to admit that since I don't like clothes shopping and since nobody has ever mistaken me for someone who does sports, I couldn't place this storefront in my mind and had to drive around the plaza looking for it. In the event, it turns out to be in the suite formerly occupied by La Bag Lady which closed in 2012.

It appears to be chilly in there.

(Hat tip to commenter mamarose)