Richland Mall, Columbia, South Carolina. Exterior view showing portions of Barnes & Noble, parking garage and Belk (former J.B. White). Photographed January 10, 2009. (cantnot)
Richland Mall, Columbia, South Carolina. Exterior view showing portions of Barnes & Noble, parking garage and Belk (former J.B. White). Photographed January 10, 2009. (cantnot)
I remember when they redeveloped Richland Mall. Bonwit Teller came in and opened a beautiful store. However, it closed soon enough and the mall was never successful. It has an awkward layout and you have to go through stores to get to stores.
ReplyDeleteI bet it was a great mall in its day. It looks impressive. Wish there were some pictures floating around of Bonwit's.
ReplyDeleteI presume the former JB Whites were part of the store exchanges that Belk and Dillard's made due to the overlap of JB White's and Dillard's ex-Ivey's?
ReplyDeleteAnd didn't the branch of the Belk family that had previously controlled the Columbia Belk's put their Belk's up for sale at one point?
Your presumption was correct. Richland, Dutch Square and Columbiana are all old White's stores swapped by Dillard's for old Belk/Leggett stores in Tidewater. Belk did better with the old Mercantile stores than Dillard's did with the Leggetts. Most of the former are still open, while a lot of the latter have closed down.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check on what happened to the original Belk stores in Columbia. There was a big controversy about it at the time.