Monday, May 18, 2009

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)

4 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. I bet it was a great mall in its day. It looks impressive. Wish there were some pictures floating around of Bonwit's.

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  3. I 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?

    And 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?

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  4. 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.

    I'll have to check on what happened to the original Belk stores in Columbia. There was a big controversy about it at the time.

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