Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As mentioned by commenter ED a while back, this Bi-Lo in Spring Valley Commons is the only one in Columbia currently slated to close and re-open as a Food Lion.

The process has now started, and while the shelves are getting rather bare, there are definitely some good deals to be had, as everything seems to be at least 40% off. I do find it rather curious that they have eschewed the normal Closing signs here. I was not in fact sure the clearance had begun because there is no indication in any of the windows. The closest thing is a small paper sign posting reduced hours, but not saying why.

It will be interesting to see how much work Food Lion does on the interior here.

(Hat tip to commener ED)

As we discussed earlier those Rite Aid locations which have been purchased by Walgreens and are close to an existing Walgreens location will be closing. The process has started now, and this store, at the west corner of Two Notch & Rabon Roads will be closing on 13 June. I didn't have a chance to go in, and these pictures through the rain aren't that great, but you can see that signs are up.

How close is this store to a Walgreens?

Directly across the road:

(Hat tip to commenter Megan)

UPDATE 10 July 2019 -- As mentioned in the comments, this is now a Dollar Tree:

Well, at least nobody was hurt.

When I heard about this fire, my first thought was It probably started in the Self Storage, and it seems I was right. The self storage (and office) facility was carved out years ago from the old Spring Valley Commons Theater, and I figured there was probably somebody storing something they shouldn't. It seems I was wrong about that second part though: The Fire Department is calling it arson.

The blaze looks to have taken out stores starting with Adams Cabinet Works and working clockwise from there, through @ The Office, Tatiana, the self storage facility and Tripp's Fine Cleaners.

Just from the looks of it, I think they'll have to knock down most of that wing. Given that there are a number of vacancies in the plaza, perhaps some of the stores can re-locate within Spring Valley Commons.

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Spring Valley Commons is the Bi-Lo shopping center at the corner of Two Notch and Rabon Roads. I've always thought of it as a strictly retail location, but the old theater has added an office suite in addition to the self-storage slots, and this storefront on the Bi-Lo side seems as though it would have catered much more to doctors' offices than to walkup traffic. I'm not sure when it closed, but it is listed in the February 2012 phonebook, so I'm just going with '2012'.

This small multiplex was located in the Spring Valley Commons strip mall on Two Notch Road. I believe the complex has a strong grocery anchor, but the rest of the place has been pretty transient.

I can only recall seeing one movie at this venue, the baseball comedy Major League in 1989. Through an odd sequence of events, involving a teenager, my father had become the semi-involuntary weekend host of a USC Japanese exchange student who spoke no English. (I wonder from time to time how that whole "go to college in a country where you don't speak the language" thing worked out for him). At something of a loss as to how to entertain the guy, my father recruited my sister and me to take him to a movie. As it turned out, the movie had a Japanese grounds-keeper character who spoke only Japanese, so at least the kid was able to understand a few words of the movie.

The theater itself was fine, not memorable in any way, but certainly OK. It was a pretty volatile time in the cinema market though, and I don't believe the place made it more than a few years into the 90s. The space is now one of the ubiquitous "self storage" operations.

UPDATE 23 October 2012: Add full street address and tags.