{"id":349,"date":"2009-03-11T21:47:57","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T02:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=349"},"modified":"2009-03-11T21:47:57","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T02:47:57","slug":"lionel-playworld-2768-decker-boulevard-1980s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Playworld, 2768 Decker Boulevard: 1980s"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Lionel Playworld<\/i> was, I believe, the first anchor tenant for the ill-fated strip-mall at the corner of Decker and Trenholm Extension (though I am not sure the extension was finished at the time it opened). The place keeps coming up in the comments to the Columbia Mall Toys-R-Us<\/a> post, so I thought I would give it its own post.<\/p>\n

My understanding is that the chain was owned by the same company that made the iconic 3-rail 0-27 guage model trains, and was a \"big box\" toy store, one of the first in the Columbia market. The place operated fairly quietly until the end when it earned a lot of bad will from the shopping public. I believe the way it unfolded was that the decision to close the store was made in the fall, but not announced. They operated through<\/i> Christmas Eve, and then closed without warning, leaving anyone with a Christmas gift to return or exchange high and dry -- it got quite a bit of local media attention at the time.<\/p>\n

After Lionel<\/i> the strip went into heavy decline, and the building sat empty for a number of years until Winn-Dixie<\/a> opened there (in the left part of the building) with great fanfare. After Winn-Dixie<\/i> pulled out of South Carolina, the building sat idle for several years again, until The Comedy House<\/i> relocated there from the Saint Andrews Road area (after a gap). From the signage, a bingo operation also now uses the location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lionel Playworld was, I believe, the first anchor tenant for the ill-fated strip-mall at the corner of Decker and Trenholm Extension (though I am not sure the extension was finished at the time it opened). The place keeps coming up in the comments to the Columbia Mall Toys-R-Us post, so I thought I would give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5,4],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-historic","tag-stores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}