Columbus #9 - Columbus, GA
"Columbus #9"
Amoco Food Store | Deli
7090 Veterans Parkway
For some Marketplace Madness, make sure to check out this week's MTC post on Winn-Dixie #439
Well, we've officially made it back to West-Central Georgia to tour another former Sing property. The store we will be examining today is very similar to the former LaGrange #5 or Bogalusa stations we looked at a few months back, with one key exception: this store never actually operated as a Sing!
Before I go into the details of this store, I want to give a general overview of Sing's Muscogee County land assets at the time of the Amoco merger.
The year was 1988, and Sing Oil Company determined it was time to expand their Fountain City footprint by purchasing a parcel of land at the intersection of Hamilton and Moon Roads. Since the store we'll be looking at today wasn't even built by the time of the Amoco-Sing merger in 1990, it was never assigned an official number by Sing Oil Company and was just listed as an undeveloped site. That's the reason I have Columbus #9 in quotes since I'm assuming that's the title this station would have taken.
Only several months later in March 1989, Sing continued its expansion efforts by purchasing another undeveloped lot in nearby Midland. This property currently has a Circle K store which was built in 1995 that appears to use a Spectrum station design (the same Spectrum I mentioned in Macon) rather than a Sing design.
The strangest of the three North Columbus tracts is the one just off J R Allen Parkway about a block from the Columbus #9 lot which was acquired several years earlier. I think this land was intended to be the site of a hotel, which just adds to the list of random side projects taken on by the company. This lot remains vacant to this day even though it is surrounded by other hotels and businesses.
So if Sing didn't build Columbus #9, who did?
It appears that our friends at McDonald Oil aka Money Back Food Stores aka Summit were the ones who built out the store in 1994, and I'm guessing that Sing already had building plans drawn up for the location that McDonald decided to use. Some of McDonald's other stores look strikingly similar to this style of Sing, so I'm not entirely sure who first used the design. Regardless, we'll still find some familiar Sing traits leading me to believe that the Thomasville company was the one to design this store.
Since I wasn't able to make it to this station until a month or so ago, I asked the Sing Oil Sidekick to take a few pictures for me when he was in the area. We'll see a mix of both of our photos taking place during the daytime while the store was still mostly a Summit. My pictures were all taken during the evening after the location had already swapped over to the Hop-In branding we see above.
Likewise, the Summit branding had just been removed when my Sidekick visited several months prior, leaving behind an obvious labelscar.
Stepping inside, we see Summit #37's wide selection of gambling bingo machines lining the left wall of the store. This is basically the only picture I took showing this half of the store, but it reminded me a lot of LaGrange #5.
Our next perspective will be a poorly framed shot of the of the cashier counter facing the door. The thing I find most odd is how the red Formica counters and grey cabinets remind me of so many other former Sings, even though Sing didn't complete this location.
Turning to the right, we can find an entire meal's worth of products on the front aisle: chicken noodle soup with a side of pork rinds along with Dippin Dots for desert and some blue Gatorade windshield wiper fluid as a drink!
I feel like the interior decorator (or lack thereof) for this store could've picked a better wall color than that jaundice yellow.
Regardless, that yellow was used throughout the store as we can in this shot looking toward the back wall.
From the other direction, we can see a profile of the open-faced milk and drink cooler. We also see this store's placement of its preferred pickle product: Lay's Dill Pickle potato chips.
The next aisle up offers a whole host of convenience store snacks, including some juicy canned peanuts: yum!
Jumping one aisle back, we find candy along with the cashier counter off in the distance.
Speaking of the cashier counter, we'll get a slightly better view from the end of the aisle before moving on. I remember there being a number of people over by the register that I didn't want to get in my shot so this is the best angle I got. This setup is very reminiscent of LaGrange #5.
Oh dear, beer is found here!
Have no fear, Hop-In has all of the gear for your Friday night cheer!
We'll veer back outside to conclude this trek with a look at the pump canopy in broad daylight . . .
and again, at dusk. It looks like Hop-In may have added a few more lights aiming back toward the store when they moved in. Probably a smart move considering what happened at a different Columbus Hop-In several weeks ago.
Interestingly, this store originally had a carwash where the sign post stands today. It looks like the building was torn down when Veterans Parkway was widened several years ago.
Speaking of Veterans Parkway, our last shot of the would-be Columbus #9 Sing was taken from the highway's intersection with Moon Road. With that, let's Hop-Into our time machine and look at some street views.
Street Views
Google Street View - January 2008
Google Street View - July 2013
Google Street View - September 2016
Google Street View - February 2022
Aerial Views
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Google Earth - February 1993
Future site of Summit #37 |
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| Google Earth - February 2012 Summit #37 with carwash and old intersection alignment |
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| Google Earth - November 2020 Current Hop-In station configuration |
Fran-Dixie
Winn-Dixie #439
North Columbus Crossing
6770 Veterans Parkway
Marketplace Madness Continues
I'm not sure how this began, but nearly every Winn-Dixie I've photographed has adopted a name of some sort. Don't ask me how this store became Fran-Dixie, but I've also got the Pig-Dixie, Thrift-Dixie, Pratt-Dixie, Hatt-Dixie, Harv-Dixie, and so on. (Some stores are more conducive to fun names than others.) Anyhow, Fran-Dixie is located on the north side of Columbus and first opened its doors to shoppers on December 1, 1999.
As for how this store came to be, I feel like a broken record in saying that it replaced another location nearby. Store #439 replaced an older store just down the road and across the street (currently Rooms To Go Outlet); but here's the kicker: the former store only opened in 1991!
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| The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Newspapers.com) - September 20, 1991 |
That's right, folks, the store that #439 replaced opened on September 20, 1991, as an "Inverted Chek" Marketplace. Just like we saw with Winn-Dixie #535's replacement two weeks ago, #439 also has a seven-year replacement turnaround in its family tree. The "Ultimate Supermarket" store we see above appears to have hermit crabbed inside a former Howard's BRANDiscount store that was built in 1979. At the time, malls of all kinds seemed to be taking over the city (that photo has a slightly-obstructed view of the Columbus #1 Sing sign) and the Hamilton Square Shopping Center was one of many construction projects in the region. This Howard's store wound up being the third in the region.
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| The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Newspapers.com) - December 19, 1979 |
The part that made this older research a bit tricky is how Veterans Parkway was renamed from Hamilton Road in 1995. I initially wondered why I couldn't find anything older than 1995 mentioning a Winn-Dixie on Veterans, until I realized the road had likely changed names. It appears that this change was due to the corridor previously holding the above title, in addition to Fourth Avenue, North Expressway, and Beallwood Connector which confused residents and visitors alike. While most were pleased with the result, some were unhappy with how it came to be. The thoroughfare was originally slated to be Olympic Boulevard as a nod to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics which was scheduled to host several events in the area; however, the Olympic name turned out be trademarked which prevented its use. Several businesses in the area had already printed new materials with the new street name which they later had to toss aside when the decision was made to name the road Veterans Parkway.
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| The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Newspapers.com) - June 11, 1980 |
The original store that I can trace #439 back to opened on June 12, 1980, in the Hamilton Square Shopping Center (currently Goodwill). That store happened to survive four years longer than its successor, ringing in at a whopping 11-years. This brought Winn-Dixie to a total of 18-years in the Hamilton Square Shopping Center before the moved on up the road to North Columbus Crossing.
I believe the Jacksonville company chose to replace the second Hamilton Square location after a lengthy battle with residents over a parcel a few miles Northwest of here in the Green Island Hills neighborhood which last made headlines the year prior. The inhabitants surrounding the potential store cited a potential rise in traffic as the main reason they didn't want a Winn-Dixie at the corner of River Road and Mobley Road.
It appears that Winn-Dixie was determined to build a Food Pavilion in North Columbus (probably to compete with nearby Publix #474 which opened in 1994, and #562, #592, and #650 which all opened between 1996-1999) because a year after the previous plans appeared to fall through, store #439 opened for business. I'd imagine that Winn-Dixie was planning to replace the Marketplace in the old Howard's store before they received the final verdict on the River Road site, but the timing still seems coincidental. I'd love to know how often one Marketplace was replaced by another one!
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| The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Newspapers.com) - December 1, 1999 |
Interestingly, I couldn't find anything that specifically mentions #439 as having a Food Pavilion in the newspaper so I wonder if that official term had fallen out of favor in the year since the Blue Angel Parkway store opened.
We may not have official proof of this store being a Food Pavilion, but the trapezoidal façade and interior layout are all indicative of that prototype. Let's head inside and "chek" it out!
Contrary to what we saw in Pensacola, this store had a separate entrance door off to the right of the centered exit door. Does anybody else think it is odd that this store has ceiling fans mounted over this patio?
Stepping inside, we are greeted with a much different color palette than the Golden Girls store we saw two weeks ago. Rest assured, this store would have looked exactly the same until it remodeled to The Green Interior we see today around 2014.
Even though this store underwent a major remodel (by Winn-Dixie's standards, at least), the department layout has still remained the same as it would've been when the store opened.
Turning back to the left, we see this store's register lines and the lowered ceiling feature found in most 1990's Marketplace stores.
This store's former International Cheese Shop gave way to a hot foods section, which is now accented by a display of some nice looking 74¢/lb. bananas.
Likewise, the Produce Patch has given way to eight symbols of produce (with no text whatsoever). Is it just me, or do the vegetable graphics on the left wall have a bolder outline than the fruit graphics on the right?
Similarly, the floral department has been scaled back from its old shop-like appearance to a less-pronounced cooler and counter setup. I wonder if those wheat graphics on the wall are hand-stenciled like those found in Kroger's Bountiful package?
Heading toward this store's "Power Alley", we can see a nice view of the delicatessen (seriously, are we back in 1984?). I don't have original pictures of this store to prove my theory, but it appears Winn-Dixie really straightened this place out during the 2014 remodel.
Taking a closer look at the deli, we can see of The Beef People have really trimmed down their prepared food selection since the late-1990's.
On the other hand, I'm still always surprised when I see Winn-Dixie's selection of cold deli foods (pasta salads, etc.) since they are served from a case rather than pre-packaged containers like Publix uses. I was also surprised that some of this store's employees were wearing tie-dye T-shirts instead of traditional uniforms.
As for the bakery, this space looks much more modern than it would have a decade ago.
I feel like Winn-Dixie's Green Interior didn't age quite as well as Publix's counterpart, Sienna, but this store still looks leaps and bounds better than a Golden Girls package in 2023. I also like the warmth that the vinyl wood flooring brings compared to the ugly concrete floors we've seen in other stores. I wonder if these floors will survive a remodel to Winn-Win.
Turning toward the back right corner of the store, we see where the salad island (now a Corona island) would have stood along with the former luncheon meats corner. Thankfully, the meat and seafood counter has remained in the same location.
As for this store's wine department, it now occupies the old Deli Café seating area since the wall with the wine refrigerator backs right up to the old "Italian Deli" and "Oriental Wok". Remember that Pensacola used this space for its snacks during my visit.
Turning around, we'll take one last look at the former Food Pavilion power alley (and Corona Island) before continuing on with our tropical vacation tour. I guess all of the items on special in this photo make sense based on my photographs dating back to last summer! They also did a decent job of hiding the grandmother (but not the kid) who kept getting in the way of my photoshoot!
Spinning around 180°, we can see where the meat & seafood counter has at least retained its Marketplace-era down lighting. I do wish more stores would embrace lighting elements like this to add some dimension to the space. Oh well, I'm sure the man with the mullet at the counter who was ordering catfish fillets didn't even notice all of the fanciness!
Next up, we'll take a look down the rear aisle of the store. I personally think the back wall looks a bit sparse since it only features a "Beef People" graphic and a small stenciled accent; regardless, I'm glad the teal Marketplace vinyl tiles are gone.
Aisle 1 offers shoppers a wide selection of Chek Colas in addition to whatever a "New Age Beverage" is. Would trendy drinks like Topo Chico and La Croix be a New Age Beverage, or would they be included with sparkling water? And I would certainly classify en-vogue kombucha as a New Age Beverage, but the probiotic nature of those drinks requires refrigeration. Who knows!
Likewise, this store also has a large selection of Coke and Pepsi products along what was formerly the "Wall of Values". Instead of values, we now have graphics of a butterfly, a tree, and two other unknown objects. I have a feeling that this package's internal name is something along the lines of "nature" and was trying to capitalize on the organic foods craze of several years ago (which I associate more with 2009 rather than 2014).
Well, it appears that those graphics on the "Wall of Values" may actually be some local flair. I think the butterfly is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, the tree is a live oak, the third object is a peach, and the fourth appears to be a flower of some kind, likely a Cherokee rose. All of these happen to be state symbols of Georgia, meaning this is one of only two-or-so Winn-Dixies to ever receive these graphics!
Our next graphic is the only one to adorn the meat department and mentions WD's iconic "Beef People" moniker. They've apparently been using this title since 1956, so it's no surprise the phrase made it into The Green Interior.
Spinning around, we see an ultra-wide aisle 4 featuring oils/shortening, soups, spices, and baking needs.
We'll jump over one more aisle to find frozen pizza, pasta sauce, frozen vegetables, and international foods. I suppose pasta sauce is internationally inspired? (Even though tomatoes were brought to Italy from The New World).
Simone Biles (at least I think that's who that is holding the cracker) will invite us to join her on the left side of the store.
Along with an assortment of Ritz crackers and Nilla wafers, we also find this store's clearance corner. Unfortunately, I didn't think to see what sort of oddities could be found over there on this trip.
One of the pieces that I think dates this store the most is this windmill graphic over the breakfast meats / creamer. Not only do windmills not relate to any of these products in the slightest, but it seems like the publicity craze over wind turbines for clean energy also died out around 2010. In addition, I think they should have placed the antique windmill on the leftmost panel. My eye tends to view them from left to right, and it looks like the windmills of today transformed into one from yesteryear!
Don't get me wrong, plenty of wind turbines are still in use and still have meaningful electricity generation, they just aren't really a relevant factor in the Southeast due to low or erratic wind speeds. Solar is the most visible "clean energy" resource found in Georgia, while natural gas and nuclear still make up the majority of the state's electricity production. Needless to say, many Georgians won't be blown away by these graphics and will more so wonder why they are here.
This store was certainly prepared for a backyard barbecue with all of that charcoal over on aisle 10!
Meanwhile, aisle 11 hosts snacks while aisle 12 has bread, eggs, and "chilled juice": another odd choice of words. Maybe this is where we can find the mysterious kombucha!
With it being summer, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to grab a watermelon since they were on sale that week (it seems like they were $8 without a Winn-Dixie card and closer to $5 with one, what a "Winning deal!"). I'll admit, I had to be a bit cheeky and photograph it with the watermelon endcap in the background.
Similar to produce, the dairy department also lacked proper department signage and instead opted for graphics of a milk bottle, juice pitcher, yogurt cup, and cheese wedge. It took me a minute to identify what that yogurt cup graphic was!
One thing I've noticed in nearly every Winn-Dixie I've been to is this really dated looking "Spill Spill Spill Station" sign. It also turns out that this sign is also an easy way to identify a store which has reused a number of décor elements from the Ghosts of Dixies-past.
Up in the front left corner, we find this store's pharmacy counter. I specifically want to point out that this store's Toledo scale appears to be behind the pharmacy glass for some odd reason.
We can find the customer service counter between the pharmacy and the checkout lanes.
I'd like to note this lower section of ceiling which I believe is a mark of this store's former photo counter.
I do like how the checkout line numbers for this package match the category markers used over the product coolers.
Our final piece of local flare, and my final shot of this store showcase the Georgia sign over this store's seasonal section. Winn-Dixie decided to use the oft-forgotten "Empire State of the South" byline rather than "The Peach State", but I think their biggest crime against design was their use of the Papyrus font (sorry if you are a fan of that choice). I am far from an expert on fonts, but I feel like a kindergartener could identify this basic font that is overused by the best mediocre designers Microsoft Word 2003 has ever seen.
To close out this post, I wanted to include a photo from a 2007 tornado. You may remember that this isn't the first time a tornado has been mentioned on The Sing Oil Blog and that's for good reason: both tornadoes were part of the same storm system. This particular EF2 tornado damaged several other structures around Columbus-Muscogee County but the one I wanted to highlight is a former Eckerd located roughly halfway between the Sing lot and the Winn-Dixie.
I didn't realize how much of the building is not utilized height-wise since we can see that the store's dropped ceiling is only about half the height of the entire building; you would've thought Eckerd had a second story with all of that space!
Unlike the EF3 twister which resulted in Americus receiving the first (known to me, at least) prototype of a Transformational Winn-Dixie, the Columbus EF2 only grazed the side of this building, allowing it to be repaired while sparing the nearby Winn-Dixie. I'm shocked at how well Eckerd or Rite Aid (I'm not sure who would have done it since the two companies merged in 2007) was able to match the construction of the building! If you look closely, you can see where the color of the bricks used for the three leftmost panels doesn't quite match the rest of the store, but I'd imagine that 99% of people would never notice or question this.
That will wrap up this week's Sing Oil Blog post, but be sure to check back here or on MFR in two weeks to see what other adventures I've gotten myself into.
Until then,
- The Sing Oil Blogger
Additional Resources:
Sing Parcel ID: 073 022 004A