And with that, the end of an era. Richland Mall, which has operated in some form on the corner of Forest Drive and Beltline Drive since the early 1960s, has closed its doors for the last time.
The mall spent the first half of its life as an open air mall anchored by J.B White department store. The store would change its branding and become Belk in 1998. Oddly enough, through all of Richland Mall’s transformations, that store would be one of the only two that survived nearly until the end; an integral part from birth until death.
Richland Mall in its current form was born out of the 1980s “mall boom,” and with a developer like L.J Hooker, a company known for building opulent, upscale malls, it was slated to not only be “a mall," but THE mall. However, a combination of bad timing, bad management and worse luck would plague the grand mall from the beginning. Though Richland Mall managed to outlive its sister mall, Cincinnati Mills, its decline was far more severe.
Richland Mall in Forest Acres. Photo by Mary Skinner/Provided
As a kid growing up in Florence, SC, my family would travel to Columbia throughout the year to shop. Back-to-school, Christmas and any other important event always went hand in hand with a trip to Richland Mall.
As a child, I remember being absolutely enchanted by Richland Mall. The colors, the lights, the fountain and, most importantly, the escalators. While most parents bribed their kids with a trip to an arcade for “suffering” through an all-day shopping trip, I was much more easily convinced. A promise of “I’ll let you ride the escalators” was all it took for 5-year-old me to be on my best behavior while trudging through Dillard's with my mom. I’d hate to think how many hours my mom spent sitting on the benches in the mall as I went up and down the escalators.
Those trips are where my love of malls began. To my family, Richland Mall was the best. The parking garage and pedestrian bridges offered shelter from any weather, and the mall offered many more options than the Magnolia Mall in Florence. Even though it was “perfect,” no one could deny the decline. Throughout the 2000s, the decline became more and more evident. Every time we visited, we’d notice fewer stores open and less shoppers. Sometime in the mid-aughts, our shopping trips to Columbia became less frequent.
I moved to Columbia in the summer of 2012 to start my freshman year at USC. After unpacking and settling into my dorm, my first stop was Richland Mall. I was shocked at how much of a downward turn the mall had taken since I was last there. But the nostalgic love I felt for it was still there, so I did the only sensible thing a mall obsessed 18 year old could; I got a job at the mall.
Richland Mall in Forest Acres. Mike Fitts/Staff
I worked as a waitress at the now long-shuttered TGI Fridays for a year. I spent my breaks strolling around the mall. After Fridays closed, I decided to start documenting the mall, thinking that, with so few stores left, it would soon close. I must have taken thousands of photos of Richland Mall over the decade since then. Photos that showed not only the decline, but the faded opulence and beauty that was still there. Many afternoons and weekends I could be found on the roof, camera in hand, or strolling the empty corridors.
On Dec. 31, I visited Richland Mall for Barnes & Noble’s final day of operation there. I bypassed all of the books and shoppers and headed straight to the back of the store, pressing my face against the glass and took one last look at the mall. The only light came from the rooftop entrances and casted strange shadows around the empty halls. Even in the emptiness, my mind could still hear the echoes of long gone shoppers; the whispers of a forgotten era.
