Columbia Closings   What's not in Columbia anymore

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 have used Young's several times, perhaps most notably for service on my father's venerable Toro, but also to get some keys cut after Home Depot botched them. They are an old-school place where there's a bit of everything.

As reported by commenter Matt, the owner is now retiring, and they are running a closing sale.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

UPDATE 16 July 2019: The State says that the final auction day is 17 August 2019, so I have changed the closing date in the post title to reflect that. They also say the lot will become a Circle K.

I noticed in my visit to Columbia Mall back in March that there was an empty storefront on the upper level for Frontline Hair Designs.

As it turns out, they have moved, and have been open again since April in their new location at 9557 Two Notch Road Suite H. This is in the Sesqui Center shopping center just east of Spring Valley. You can check out their Facebook page here.

Here's another de-branching, this one on Two Notch more or less across from Spring Valley. You can see the NBSC signage up at LoopNet, and I find the area description from RealtyTrac rather interesting:

For the surrounding community of Columbia, SC 29223, the nearby schools are above average and include Windsor Elementary, E L Wright Middle and Richland Northeast High. The overall crime risk for this area is slightly high with 4 criminal and sex offenders residing within 1 mile. The natural disaster risk for this area includes very low earthquake risk, very high tornado risk, and minimal flood risk.

Domino's at Polo Plaza has moved across the parking lot and around the corner to the freestanding building at 9814 Two Notch Road, which used to house Blockbuster Video and then A Goodnight Sleepstore.

As you can see from the pictures, they are only occupying the north half of the building, and the south half is still for lease.

(Hat tip to commenter LD)

The first pictures here were taken last October, when Tiffany's put up the moving signs. Apparently it was a more involved process than expected, because the signs came down for several months. Now they have finished the move to 9704 Two Notch Road, the site of the old site of The Movies At Polo, where a new building has been built in what was the parking lot for the theaters.

According to the sign there, Tiffany's will be open at the new location tomorrow: 3 May 2019.

There are two stories from The State, here and here, indicating that the new space is double the size of the old, and showing how much longer than expected it took.

Here's another empty counter in Columbia Mall's food court. I don't know anything about it, but google does suggest that there was a Mano's Express in the Dutch Square food court. It seems an uncommon enough name that I suspect they were related, though the other one seems to have focused on soul food, while this one went the burgers & dogs route.

When I took these pictures on 30 March, I couldn't see any indication on the door that the place was about to close, but apparently by the last day, it was there.

I have never eaten at any of the Miyo's or M locations, but I believe this one had been at Sandhill from the early days.

(Hat tip to commenter Rashaad)

UPDATE 22 May 2019: The State says this is to become an El Jimador.

I noticed when I was in the Columbia Mall food court recently that China Max was closed. It's been quite a while since I was at the mall last, so I'm just tagging the date as 2018 for lack of anything more precise. I presume this China Max was connected with the China Max at Richland Mall, but I don't know for sure.

What I find especially interesting is the sign proclaiming that the place will soon be a King's Pizza. This pizza chain seems to be making a big splash all of a sudden, with a store on Forest Drive in the former Charlie's Wings, one opening here, and one opening in the old Chickadee's Diner on Marshall Street.

I don't know much about autoPROS Columbia other than that it was a used car dealership, and had an idiosyncratic sense of capitalization and word spacing. This space was previously Stivers Subaru, which closed in 2011. After that, I think the spot was vacant a few years before autoPROS moved in, and probably will be again now.

(Hat tip to commenter Matt)

UPDATE 11 July 2019 -- Now American Car Center: