Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

As reported by commenter Andrew, the Food Lion in Polo Plaza has upped shop and moved to the old Bi-Lo in Spring Valley Commons.

This move leaves not a lot in Polo Plaza, which Domino's having moved last year.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew)

UPDATE 2 May 2020: Changed the move date from March 2020 to June 2019 based on the comments.

I have been going through some old pictures the last several days, and ran across this set, which I had staged for uploading back in 2015. I'm not sure if I actually did do a post, and it was lost in the database crash of a few years ago, or if I just dropped the ball for some reason. (I certainly can no longer say I remember each and every post!).

Anyway, Jordan's Modern Bride & Groom was located in The Shops of O'Neil Court. After closing this store, it appears they moved to Spring Valley Commons and then decided to take the store online in 2016.

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)

I noticed that this Wells Fargo branch at Spring Valley Commons was for sale when I drove by the other week. I went back to get some pictures, and I see the ATM is still online, and looking through the drive-through window the place appears to be not yet stripped, so I guessing this is a very recent closing. The sign directs people to Sparkleberry, but there is also another Two Notch Branch at the old Dentsville Kmart.

I know Wells Fargo has had some trouble lately, which they brought on themselves, but it's also the fact that the Internet has branch banking in a general decline.

UPDATE 29 October 2018 -- This building has been bought and is being gutted, though it is not yet clear for what:

UPDATE 1 May 2019: Update tags.

UPDATE 5 November 2019 -- Now a Starbucks:

I noticed when I was taking pictures of Cycle Center that this adjacent Sammi's Deli had also closed, presumably due to the same fire.

It appears to me that some work has gone on, or is going on to rehabilitate the space. There are no signs indicating one way or the other, but perhaps this place will be back eventually.

Commenter Patrica Lewis points out that Cycle Center in Spring Valley Commons is closed.

The sign explains that the location was rendered infeasible by the fire last October (2013) which did a lot of direct damage to the East wing of the plaza and indirect damage here.

Rebuilding is continuing on the east wing and Tripp's Cleaners and the storage facility have reopened.

(Hat tip to commenter Patricia Lewis)

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'.

Well, this is the second Tuesday Morning to close in the last serveral years. Of course events now seem to suggest that the first one I wrote about at Trenholm Plaza probably was a casualty of the up-scaling of that venue rather than any inate problems (based on a classy restaurant being put into that spot, and Tuesday Morning opening a new location just a few blocks down the street).

I doubt Spring Valley Commons is upscaling (at least not as long as there is "self storage" in the old theater slot), but I guess time will tell if we see another Tuesday Morning in the same general area. I have finally been in a couple of Tuesday Mornings, and it strikes me as a store you would not have reason to visit very often, so it seems to me that each store would take a pretty large population to sustain one.

(Hat tip to commenter Andrew).

UPDATE 2 March 2023: Updating tags and adding map icon.

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.