Columbia Place Mall's Opening: Rich's and Two Levels
Rich's came to Two Notch Road in 1977 with a building problem and not much South Carolina history.
The Atlanta chain's anchor sat against a grade change on the western side of the new Columbia Mall; the lower level was partly set into the earth, and shoppers arriving from the parking field entered through an elevated connector on the upper floor.
It was the most architecturally complicated entrance at any of the four anchors. For many northeast Columbia shoppers, it was also the first Rich's they had ever walked into.
Belk on the east. JCPenney at the north end. Sears at the south. Rich's in the west, with its unusual entry.
Two full levels of enclosed concourse connecting all four, with escalators between floors and in-line shops running the length of both levels.
Columbia Mall opened on August 10, 1977. South Carolina had not seen an enclosed mall built this way before.
Two Notch Road Before and After the Mall
Kahn Development Company and The Richard E. Jacobs Group chose the Two Notch Road site for room and reach.
There was land enough for a large mall, a broad parking field, and outparcels around the perimeter; Interstates 20 and 77 ran close by.
Fort Jackson was a few miles away. Northeast Richland County was growing, and the road had no retail anchor that matched its momentum.
Before Columbia Mall, full-line department stores meant a drive downtown or to older shopping centers elsewhere in the city.
The new mall moved the center of retail gravity to the northeast side in a single opening.
Columbia Mall Boulevard, a loop road serving the property and its outparcels, became an address for the restaurants, auto services, and roadside businesses that followed.
The official address, 7201 Two Notch Road, became one of the better-known retail coordinates in the county. The mall helped establish Two Notch Road as one of the region's major retail corridors.
Four Anchors, One Concourse: The Peak Retail Years
National chain tenants filled the in-line spaces between anchors through the late 1980s and 1990s, and all four department stores were open.
The mix covered apparel, shoe stores, and jewelry alongside service businesses. The in-line tenants depended on customers who came for Sears, JCPenney, or Rich's and kept walking.
In 1995, Dillard's replaced Belk in the eastern anchor, a national name taking over a corner that had drawn shoppers since 1977.
The food court arrived in 1997, eight units on the upper level near Sears: Sarku Japan, China Max, Auntie Anne's, and five others.
It concentrated what had been scattered snack and dining tenants into a shared seating section on the upper concourse.
CBL, the 2002 Renovation, and Rich's Last Years
CBL & Associates Properties acquired Columbia Place in January 2001 as part of a $1.3 billion transaction covering 21 malls in the Richard E. Jacobs Group portfolio.
A renovation followed in 2002, refreshing common areas and interior finishes without altering the structure.
Columbiana Centre on the northwest side had opened in the early 1990s as a stronger regional competitor; Village at Sandhill was developing further east on the Clemson Road corridor.
The 1970s finishes were starting to show their age, and the renovation addressed them. Holding the position was the point, not gaining it.
In 2005, Rich's became Macy's across the country, Columbia Place included. The sign on the west side changed; the grade-change entrance and elevated upper-level connector stayed as they were.
JCPenney left in 2007. The chain did not close; it relocated to Village at Sandhill, roughly 10 miles east.
A newer format in a newer growth corridor had pulled one of the original four anchors away from the building it had occupied since 1977.
The north end of the mall went quiet.
Empty Boxes, Foreclosure, and a New Owner from Las Vegas
Burlington Coat Factory took the lower level of the old JCPenney building. Steve & Barry's, a sports and pop-culture apparel chain, took the upper.
Two separate tenants where a single department store had been. Then Steve & Barry's collapsed as a company.
By early 2009, that upper level was empty.
Dillard's closed on November 4, 2008. The announcement had come in August, and the eastern anchor building shut on schedule.
One large two-level anchor box now sat dark, while the old JCPenney building was only partly empty: Burlington was still running below the empty Steve & Barry's floor.
CBL eventually lost control of the property through foreclosure-related proceedings. Spinoso Real Estate Group managed it for a period.
In 2014, an affiliate of Moonbeam Capital Investments, a Las Vegas-based company acquiring distressed retail properties in multiple states, took over by purchasing the debt secured by the mall and then buying the property outright.
Moonbeam positioned Columbia Place around what it still had: 1.1 million square feet, two levels, the largest enclosed mall in the Columbia area, strong highway access, and proximity to Fort Jackson.
A future dine-in movie theater was part of the pitch. The theater was not built.
Sears: Forty Years at the South Anchor, Then Gone
Sears had been at the south end of Columbia Place since the day it opened in 1977, occupying 182,000 square feet on two levels.
JCPenney left. Dillard's shut. Steve & Barry's collapsed. Through the CBL years and the foreclosure and the Moonbeam ownership, the south anchor held.
In June 2017, Sears announced the Columbia Place store would close. It closed in September.
Burlington shut its Columbia Place location in February 2018, ending retail use of the lower half of the former JCPenney box.
With Sears gone, no original anchor name from the 1977 lineup remained in operation.
By early 2018, three of the four original anchor buildings had lost their tenants. Macy's, in the former Rich's building on the west side, was the only full-line department store still operating at Columbia Place.
Richland County's Answer: A Government Hub in the Anchor Spaces
The former anchor buildings at Columbia Place offered floor plates that an ordinary office search in Columbia could not match: large, two-level spaces with parking already built in, on a corridor accessible to much of the county.
The county had aging service offices, scattered agencies, and little room for expansion downtown. The empty boxes on Two Notch Road were the practical answer.
In December 2017, the county council authorized its administrator to move forward with the Richland Renaissance strategy, a $144 million capital program covering judicial space, service hubs, and mall reuse.
Most of the broader plan was later scaled back. The mall component survived.
In 2022, the county issued $40 million in bonds for a public safety complex in the former JCPenney/Burlington building.
The lower level was planned for a new E-911 center and the South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services.
The upper level, the floor Steve & Barry's had left empty in 2009, was planned for the Department of Juvenile Justice and the county voter registration and elections office.
Building Out the County Campus: 2023 Through 2025
In 2023, the county advanced a $71 million plan for the former Dillard's building, which would become a Family Services Center housing the South Carolina Department of Social Services, the Department of Health and Human Services, and related agencies.
$17 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding was identified for the social-services portion. The design-build contract went to M.B. Kahn and LS3P.
In June 2025, the county council approved the purchase of the Macy's property and associated land, completing a hold on all four of the mall's major anchor positions.
That same month, the council approved emergency roof work on the former Sears building, where multiple leaks had caused interior water damage; the project included asbestos removal and a completely new roof with a 20-year warranty.
In October 2025, the voter registration and elections office opened in the former JCPenney space. The Family Services Center was expected to open in early 2027.
Columbia Place Mall in 2026: What Remains, What Changed
By May 2026, 328,000 square feet of the mall's space is in use or being converted for county and state agency purposes, with Richland County Government Center as the anchor.
Three vacant land parcels totaling 68,000 square feet remain available for lease.
The retail concourse still operates. Bath & Body Works, Foot Locker, Victoria's Secret, Marshalls, Champs Sports, Claire's, Zales, Lids, DTLR, and Rainbow have been among the active tenants in recent years.
The food court near the former Sears end still holds Sarku Japan, China Max, and Auntie Anne's. Macy's was present into late 2025, with the elections office next door in what had been JCPenney.
The parking field that spread out in front of the mall when it opened is still there.
Where Dillard's was, a county family services center will open in 2027. Where JCPenney was, a 911 center is being prepared below a voter registration office.
Where Sears was, a new roof sits over floors that needed asbestos removed before anyone could work in them.
The mall that opened as Columbia Mall in 1977, with a grade-change entrance and four department stores that gave northeast Columbia something it had not had before, remains on Two Notch Road.
People drive out and park in the same field. The building is open.
