Virtual Growth / Blue Cross & Blue Shield / Parcone Development Corporation, 10261 Two Notch Road: 2000s 22 comments
Commenter Megan asked about this place several months ago, and nobody had any response. I finally got a chance to go out there on a nice sunny day and take a look around. What I found is really odd.
This building sits more or less at the intersection of Two Notch Road and Fashion Drive (google maps claims the street is Fashion Lane) which is the stop-lighted Two Notch entrance to The Village at Sandhill. It's in a Sandhill outparcel called Sandhill Station with a Cici's Pizza and Christian bookstore.
However, while the Cici's building is obviously newly built, it was, for some reason, built flush up against this older building. In fact, depending on how you want to define "building" you could almost say it's one building with a new part and an old part.
There is no indication of what this older building was. It obviously dates back at least 20 years, and would probably at one time (before Fashion Drive) have been counted as being on Two Notch Road (albeit on an access road on the wrong side of the tracks). It has the look of a light manufacturing operation of some kind. If you look at the google satellite image here, you can see that it had a huge employee parking lot, some of which is in use by Sandhill Station now, and some of which is sort of going to seed.
I can't imagine why things worked out this way unless Sandhill planned to buy and knock down the building, but it fell through in the crash. The new part is well maintained, but the old part is heavily vandalized, tagged and overgrown. I suppose it is still within the realm of possibility that it could be rehabilitated with some intense TLC, but it seems unlikely, and the new businesses can't be happy about the image it gives them -- surely if it were under the control of Sandhill Station, it would be gone.
Even new, most of the building would have been pretty pedestrian, but the glassed in staircase entrance is actually quite attractive, especially with the bright aqua color scheme.
(Hat tip to commenter Megan)
UPDATE 12 May 2011: OK, given the address commenter Badger dug up, 10261 Two Notch Road, I can find a little more information, and have changed the post title from the generic "Building".
The first reference I find to that address is a press release from September of 2000 saying that a New York based Internet business called Virtual Growth was going to bring 300 jobs to that location. Of course that date was just about the burst date for the Internet Bubble, so I don't know if Virtual Growth ever arrived or not. (BTW, in computer terms, something is "virtual" when it appears to be there when it is in fact not..)
Next, it appears that Blue Cross & Blue Shield ran a Medicare operation out of that location.
I don't know when they left, but I surmise that their move left the building's owner, Parcone Development Corporation in a bind, because I find this note in the Columbia Star from May 2006 saying that Regions Bank was forclosing on Parcone, and that the property was to be sold at auction on 5 June 2006 at high noon. Judging from the current condition of the property, I suspect they did not find a buyer. This Property valuation for 2009/2010 is consistent with that, in that it still lists Parcone as the owner. However that doesn't square with the announced terms of the auction which stated that anyone except Parcone could participate..
(click-through mildly NSFW)
UPDATE 27 March 2017 -- Gone:
UPDATE 7 February 2018 -- Replaced with the new Burlington building:
22 Responses to 'Virtual Growth / Blue Cross & Blue Shield / Parcone Development Corporation, 10261 Two Notch Road: 2000s'
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Nancy
11 May 11 at 8:28 am
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Ted, do you ever get nervous going into some of these buildings? I think it is great to be an urban explorer. This place looks kinda safe, but they reminded me of your exploration of the McKenzie Motel and Knockers Oasis.
Jonathan
11 May 11 at 9:56 am
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If that's the old Blue Cross warehouse, that address would appear to have been 10261 Two Notch.
badger
11 May 11 at 12:15 pm
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@Jonathan --
I was very nervous going into Knockers/Southern Gentlemans. It was isolated and seemed like the kind of place people who didn't want to be found might be hanging out. In the event, I got as far as the bar area and chickened out.
McKenzie Beach was totally different, well travelled area, visible from the highway, and not realy an enclosed space (any more..). I was a little worried about stepping on a nail, but that's it.
This place, no worries at all about people as it's in a well-travelled shopping center on a bright sunny day. (Obviously it's been vandalized, but I feel sure that was either before Sandhill, or at night). I didn't go much past the door though. It's not posted, but I certainly didn't want to push it (or get glass in my shoes for that matter).
ted
11 May 11 at 1:30 pm
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I'm pretty sure this building used to be a car dealer. I remember when they built the attachment to it, and I thought to myself, "how odd to add extra business space to a car dealer!". I'm thinking a Dodge dealer, but I'm nowhere near certain.
Looks like the "Parcone" was really "Parc One". http://www.centralmidlands.org/pdf/2005%20Brig.pdf
JP
J.P.
24 May 11 at 10:20 am
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Thank you so much for looking into this Ted! I was afraid my comment got lost. You made my day :)
Megan
26 May 11 at 3:38 pm
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De nada, Megan!
ted
26 May 11 at 3:53 pm
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This building--before the glass addition was built--was some sort of plant, though i don't recall what they bult. I think it was also used by Sears as a receiving warehouse for a while.
Norm
5 Aug 11 at 10:16 am
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Hey Ted! How would I go about aquiring this property. I called the county building downtown and they gave me the Parcone info that led me to you. Now I'm itting that brick wall again...
Alonzo
11 Jan 12 at 12:05 pm
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You got me. I would have though the county tax records would show the owner contact info, but if they don't know, I sure don't.
ted
11 Jan 12 at 6:00 pm
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me and some friends just explored the upstares of that building....lets just say it is creapy and not safe there is alot of nails and metal. (we were not vandalizing just wanted to take a look)
cody
15 Jan 12 at 11:14 pm
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In the alphabetical closings tab, the Blue Martini listing links here (not sure why)
Andrew
27 Jan 12 at 11:14 pm
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Operator Headspace Error
ted
28 Jan 12 at 12:48 am
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I just saw this article; don't know if anyone's still interested, but here's what I know. I believe this building was originally built 1966/67. My (at the time future) husband's father moved their family to Columbia from Parma, Ohio to help open the plant: Nyflock. They made flock or fuzzy "stuff" which I think I remember was some how used in automobile manufacturing (?) and another use of flock was on greeting cards. My mother-in-law & I sewed nylon "bags" to hold the flock. Great job for a newlywed college student. And I wouldn't have met my husband if the company hadn't caused his family to move next door to mine!
Doesn't Kahn own the property? Would seem like they could explain why the building has never been torn down. I know I've wondered about it over the years.Dianne
31 Jul 12 at 9:55 pm
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Dianne, my theory is that Village at Sandhill hasn't expanded into that space just yet
Andrew
31 Jul 12 at 11:53 pm
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Andrew, tax records are confusing, but it appears that Village at Sandhill/Kahn Development do not own that space. Yet(?). I have wondered why Mr. Kahn would leave it like that. Time will tell. ?
Dianne
1 Aug 12 at 1:07 am
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I recall reading an article in The State that the Village was to be completed in phases and it seems to me that VaS hasn't quite expanded into that area just yet
Andrew
1 Aug 12 at 2:10 pm
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According to the property records online the building was built in 1965 and is zoned General Commercial, on the property record the building description says Warehouse/Public and the building is 53,556 sq.ft. i live not to far from Sandhills, used to go there all the time, never noticed this building tho! hope this info helps.
Mike
6 Aug 14 at 9:32 am
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This building appears to have been demolished sometime in 2016.
mike
30 Jan 17 at 9:14 pm
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Well, I guess that answers the question of whether it was beyond saving. Are they building anything there?
ted
30 Jan 17 at 11:35 pm
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I remember hearing horror stories about this building when BlueCross occupied it. Overrun with rats and roaches and leaks everywhere. Heard several times that a lot of computer equipment was damaged/destroyed by leaks.
Homer
5 Feb 17 at 12:05 am
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Now this building is gone and Burlington is replacing it.
Sidney
2 Jan 18 at 10:38 pm
According to my husband who use to work for Blue Cross and blue shield it was one of their buildings , it was used for some offices but mostly storage.