Exploring the Abandoned Richland Mall - 80s in Decay 

Thanks to MyHeritage for sponsoring a portion of this video. Buy a DNA kit here: bit.ly/TheProperPeople and use the coupon code PROPERPEOPLE for free shipping and a 30 day free trial for their family research subscription. Check out more old photos and videos of this mall from when it was operational! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1Nu0YkkKJlk.html

It's so weird seeing things like "wifi" and "like us on facebook" in a building that is starting to rot and fall apart due to being abandoned.

Yall have no idea how much this means to me! This is in my hometown and since my husband and I are in the military I have not been home in awhile. I remember going to this mall with my grandmother who is no longer alive. My father and I spent many hours at the Barnes and noble. I saw many movies there in college. It was emotional to see this. Thank you so much 🫡🥹

The fact that they went out of their way to cover up all those high ceilings and natural light in the converted office space makes it extra depressing

Mate that intro was probably an absolute pain in the ass but the result is spectacular. Bryan and Michael lots of appreciation for your dedication to content,from Australia

That intro was awesome!! 😄

I have to be in the right mood to watch these because the emptiness of such once lively & occupied places reminds me of being at a funeral. It's this sadness at what has been lost to time.

For those who don't know. Richland Fashion Mall is now mostly torn down. I live in the area and drive by it everyday. It's being torn down and being replaced with a mixed used complex of Shopping and Apartments.

I could literally cry. It's like all of my hopes for seeing everything about this mall have finally been answered! It's been over a decade since I first discovered this place and I've been extremely intrigued about it ever since. I never thought I'd get to see anything of the original food court (either vintage photos or what it looks like today), but you guys made the impossible come to fruition. Thank you so much! I thought no one would be able to top Sal's video back in 2020, but this is the true ultimate Richland Fashion Mall adventure. You guys covered every nook and cranny of this place. I can't thank you enough! This feels like a proper complete farewell to this extremely interesting, yet cursed piece of Columbia, SC retail history.

VHS, light buzz sound, moist carpet.. welcome to the backroom

As a Columbia resident, you use to be able to walk through the entire thing until 2019. Barnes and Noble left in December in 2023 and the whole place is now being demolished. When my wife and I were bored we’d walk through it for the vibes on Friday nights

The animatronic bears were a whole little orchestra they would put out at Christmas and they would play like every 30 min, and each cycle was a good length of time.

I’ve lived in Columbia since 2016 and remember walking through this mall before they closed most of it off to the public and before it got so vandalized. I’m glad y’all came and documented it before they demolished it. Loved seeing the areas I’ve hadn’t seen before!

It reminds me of a word I first learned from another urban explorer, Jon Revelle -- obsolescence. We build these huge structures with the idea that they will last forever or at least for an age, but they fall into disuse and quickly become irrelevant. It's a clear lesson about the passage of time and the utter temporariness of everything.

Hard to believe the theater was still in operation just a few months before this video. I actually live not far from this mall, and it's sad to see how bad of a shape it's in.

My mom and I loved Richland Fashion Mall! We were at the opening. The old open concourse mall was Richland Mall and it had JB White, Tapps and S&S cafeteria along with other local stores. RF mall had Bon Whit Teller(they lasted 3yrs then were replaced by Dillards, JB White and Persian as anchors. We felt so fancy shopping there. I hope they can restart demolition soon. They had a bad fire a week ago. Thanks for the video and memories

It's interesting to see the rate at which a complex deteriorates once abandoned. It gives you an idea of how expensive and time consuming it would be to maintain such a huge complex for decades while it is open. Locating leaks, roof repairs, painting, etc. I imagine that's why the a/c systems are left on 24/7 to reduce the amount of moisture within the complex and prevent mold and mildew building up. Great video!

I have been watching y'alls videos religiously for years, and am always in awe with the level of detail and albeit charm put into these videos. But the icing on the cake for me will always be the music. I dont know where y'all find it or its original, but it never fails to always meet the atmosphere of every location. Kudos on another fantastic piece of abandonment.

The locked room in the VZ call center with the Hazardous markings would have been a large UPS location to supply backup power to the call floor. Having a call center go down on customers creates more issues for customer perception so it is cheaper to power the call floor itself.

What a trip. Used to go here in high school for movies, Barnes and Nobles, and Christmas tree lighting each year. That was about 12 years ago now

I used to walk with my grandparents around the mall and we would get to go to the bottom floor to dollar tree and get the grab bags. Good memories at that place. Makes me miss my grandfather a lot.

My wife works across the road from the now almost completely demoed mall. She said that when the work started, people asked if they could park in her work establishment's parking lot, just to observe the mall being tore down. That makes me think that they had alot of memories there...or they just found destruction of the building interesting. Back when Barns And Noble was in operation there, we walked in and looked around, eventually making our way to the back of the store with this glass wall, and metal door type thing. I recall the smell at that door not being very pleasant. I also remember there being 2 or 3 cars being on the other side (mall side of course) of the glass wall. They looked like dirt track cars to me. I wonder what happened to them? 🤔...probably junked. Any any rate, I never went into this mall (as far as i can remember)...other than the time i went into the book store with my wife. I always ended up Columbiana Mall, off Harbison. Richland Mall seemed a bit more classier to me. More sophisticated, due to ceiling designs, lighting arrangements, and all the glass for skylights, and certain entrance points from the roof top parking. I bet that food court with the glass walls and ceiling was LEGIT back in the malls prime. Certainly something to experience. But...I tell you one thing. That call center was DEPRESSING. It's a textbook example of what a call center would look like. Cubicles everywhere. Not a window in sight. Stereotypical office lighting. RIP to the mall. But not that call center 😅.

I used to frequent that mall at least once a month in the 90s and 00s. The Barnes and Noble, a sports memorabilia store that had Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments in the back. So many memories. It's sad to see it now.

Wow, that cubicle hell with the cliche motivational quotes all over the walls - what a depressing place to show up to every day. "Cubicle 2333, why aren't you at your post?!!"

The curtain in front of the movie screen used to be the norm. All movie theaters used to do it. It would split down the middle and pull back to both sides or it would raise up into the ceiling. I don't know why or when they stopped doing it but I remember it well from being a kid in the 80s. I also remember there being just curtains on the edges and they would be in one spot for the previews then when the movie started they would pull back further. And then the curtains just went away completely.

That original food court looked nice

25:57 A chair just chillin' _and_ Christmas decorations in one spot.

Used to do mold removals. When you guys walked into this area, my chest tightened a bit. I would recommend a respirator, bros. 42:00

Much more than the primary colors and neon of stranger things, this sort of bluish green and bright brass with the soft pink accents is what I think of when I remember 80s design. Cool that you got to document it!

was looking up those “___ but it’s in an abandoned mall” videos and found this.. this was the mall my grandma took me to play at as a kid about fifteen years ago & this place was still nice but definitely a ghost town then. i now live across the country and it’s absolutely crazy to see one of my favorite childhood memories in such a decrepit state

I USED TO GO TO THIS MALL! I CANT BELIEVE YOU CAME TO MY HOMETOWN!

I have lived in columbia sc since 1985. I have worked, shopped, and hung out in this mall. I remember the old food court. It was depressing to see that we lost that beautiful, big, bright food court for such a horrific office space. Thanks so much for covering this! My husband and i were saying how much we hoped yall would!

Always find the Mall Management, Maintenance/Janitorial and Security offices. Sometimes you can find some interesting things there in regards to the Malls history.

42:42 This is very high risk for legionnaires disease. Be careful in these situations, that's a very old and clearly unmaintained chiller system.

They dug up the time capsule and relocated it to a more, suitable location. IIRC, they are going to build a new community.

So glad you did a video on this place, grew up going to this mall as a child living only 5 minutes away, and even spent days hanging out in the interior after it was mostly abandoned. As a student at the high school across the street from this place, it’s a huge part of where I spent my time with friends, so cool someone could capture and immortalize the interior of this place.

I thought this looked familiar! My wife and I lived in Columbia, SC for 6 months in 2019. We visited here when there was just a few stores open still. Crazy how much more rundown it looks now. Excited to watch this whole video!

As someone who suffered from mold toxicity this video was extremely triggering! Mold will wreak havoc on your health even if only exposed for a short amount of time. You guys should wear protective gear, it can take years to recover from mold toxicity.

I live near here! This is my mall! I was last here in 2022, and it's facinating to see how fast things decay in just 2 years. They stopped actively maintaining the place a few years before covid, like they cleaned things and kept the elevator working but when lights went out they'd wait to put a new one in for months. Covid was just the nail in the coffin. The china max you saw, I don't remember ever being open, so it must've closed down before 2011 when I first visited. You should have tried using the elevator, the bell makes the most forlorn ding. I never knew the display cases near the front used to be stores, so much space back there. That hazard diamond you saw, if it is to be believed, means "extreme danger: health hazard", and based on the rest of the building, probably black mold. Be glad you couldn't open the door. Those verizon offices are straight up just the backrooms. That mold in dillards looks like its dissolving the mall. Pretty sad, and also understandable why they've decided to just demolish the whole thing. Thank you for this video.

I’ve always been such a big fan of this mall’s beautiful and obscure architecture, even in its decrepit state I still used to visit. Seeing this video makes me so happy, I never expected to see full coverage of the place! I was personally never able to experience the first food court, but my parents had, and always told me about how nice it was. Thank you for documenting this, it feels like the perfect closure to the mall’s present demolition.

As a young chap in the 60's, the closest thing to a "mall" then was the Sears & Roebuck Dept. store. They sold everything from eye glasses to Ted William's shotguns and rifles. You could even pay your light and phone bill while you were there. My dad was a minister and thusly we moved around a good bit. In the early 70's, he pastored a church in Livonia MI. They had an actual Mall there. Their "anchor" stores were, of course, a large Sears and a smaller J.C Penney. What fascinated my, 11 or 12 year old self, were all of the smaller stores that was in between them, under one roof.

Man, used to go to this mall for the theater and the Barnes and Nobles routinely when I was in college maybe 10 years ago. Would have loved to see this Mall in it's prime and not on the downward spiral.

That was a sick transition from the intro to title theme

I live right around the corner and have seen every inch of this abandoned mall. I’m so happy to finally see coverage of this place since it’s been so unknown. There was a fire there a few days ago during demolition, and it’s so sad to see it go but I’m hopeful that what’s to come is actually good

Watching these is like watching someone walk through a lost fragment of memory in your mind from your youth or childhood. A memory that's decaying, going to be gone soon, maybe to free up space for a new memory or just gone as you get older and your mind is decaying. A memory that started out long ago where you were there in a moment, lots of people around, hustle-n-bustle, maybe you were excited to be there to buy something. But, now, you can't quite remember. You just remember the shape of the place. You don't remember the people, or why you were there. You just know that you were there at some point. Can barely make out the detail. The memory is falling apart, and it's better to let it die than to dwell on how hollow it feels now.

Damn, it really became just the backrooms after barnes and noble left, nothing else left to redeem it. I remember going there every once in a while to spend time with family and then going to the Moe's across the street. Edit : seeing the theater made me cry. I remember seeing some animated movie as a kid when i was there. That ugly ramp, the neon lights. Its actually surreal.

The nice light buzzing of lights, the blank white walls in areas, you're like 2 steps from a liminal space. Also, I'm gonna count that messed up Gingerbread man as a a tally for Christmas decorations yall normally look for haha.

As someone who shopped in that mall from the time it opened to the time it closed, Barnes and Noble shopping was odd with the dead mall all around it. But it was what it was. Thanks for filming this!

It is so incredibly surreal to see the mall across the street from your high school that housed your best study spaces explored on the internet with over 200,000 viewers. They started tearing it down about a year ago and have taken about half of it by now it is so odd.

Very cool intro! One of my favorite things that you guys do is tell the history of the places you explore, and that took it up a notch! I also had to look into that time capsule and luckily it sounds like it will be reburied in the park that will be built in that area.

This is the video I've waited for from you guys. I have so many memories of this mall. I grew up going, and have made several nostalgia-driven visits in the last few years before it finally closed for good. It's sad to see it in a state of disrepair and now being demolished, but I'm glad that it has been documented for everyone to see. Thank you for the video.

My cousin & I went there back in 2019 to watch a movie at the theater. It was sooooo eerily quiet as we made our way up to the theater. I was like “why tf are we here?!” 😂 We ended up getting locked out (bc she thought it was a great idea to park at the front of the mall). So one of the workers at the theatre had to drive us back down to get to the car. It was even creepier by nightfall. It’s an experience that I’ll never forget!

Wow, you guys! That intro was magic. I had so many memories come up when watching that, even though I've never stood foot into that building before. The classic shades of pink, teal and gold combo! I can only imagine how regal everything would have looked with the lighting. Its bittersweet to think about how the 80's-00's used to be so community based. Holidays, celebrations, fashion shows, time capsules, you name it; I even remember entering every colouring contests I could get my hands on when I was a kid... and for it to slowly fall apart and have it filled with cubicles, florescent lighting, covered windows and skylights creating a depressing grey abyss. Its heartbreaking... and makes you think...

Awesome to see a local exploration here in Columbia! Would love to see more SC explorations.

This really hits me in the feels considering my own local mall, the Charleston Town Center mall in Charleston WV, has been being slowly demolished. The core of the mall is still there but the two anchor stores of Sears and JC Penny were demolished with the latter in the last month.

The old food court was so much better. It also had an arcade. Looking back it really did feel like the beginning of the end when they made those changes. Also, you are correct in that it was very awkward having to go through Belk to get to the other side of the mall.

The bears were part of the Leonard beartsein symphony orchestra. They had arm, mouth, and head movements, they performed at the Milwaukee grand avenue mall from 1999-2017. I hope this was helpful.

"An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs."

They must've had an insane electricity bill with all the incandescent lighting. Also the janitors problably spent most of their duty constantly changing light bulbs and (in the recent years) building improvised waterslides or emptying water buckets. Crazy job.

I visited this mall in 2018, my wife needed to visit a glasses store. It was dark and mostly abandoned already. Funny coincidence about your sponsor, we also used MyHeritageDNA tests that year to see our own heritage. It was interesting and we've enjoyed the conversations that resulted from it. Actually, I think I can give this mall credit for me eventually finding your channel. I was intrigued by it and started watching Dan Bell's dead mall videos. That linked my youtube to recommend The Proper People.

Man, I miss the 1980s/90s aesthetic

I can almost guarantee that the developer was in the business since 1982 and was like "I know what a fancy mall should look like!" Commence with neon lighting and pastel tile art. Also, that theater seating wasn't just the "old style" it was vintage. It wasn't too long after that when theaters started introducing a greater angle that you had to use stairs to go up. Also entering in at the bottom and going up, rather than entering at the top and having a slight slope down.

Malls were such a staple of my childhood and teenage years. It's incredible to watch them all just...fall down now.

I went here as a teenager back in the day! Moved, decades later came back around 2013 and it was sad spooky. Much love Columbia.

This was before DIY mechanical keyboards were a thing. 12:03 That dead space is not likely because they weren't expecting big crowds. Malls of that era were packed. Most likely the tables were removed and sold/stored as the place was shutting down.

You guys are always stretching it a bit - I appreciated the use of the original promo, slipping right into your intro. Nice. As a former mall rat, I was surprised by the rooftop parking and that a mall of that size had unknown anchor tenants. This was a great way to kick off the weekend, thanks!

Makes my day every time a notification pops up for a new video :)

This is soooo nostalgic for me. No lie, I used to set up Christmas decorations each year in that mall. We set up that animatronic bear concert band each fall, and set up a stage over that fountain area by the elevator that had a fireplace, and some other house type things. And we'd fill up the outsides of the fountain with white Styrofoam popcorn to simulate snow. I used to have a blast climbing up the outside of the elevator to hang wreaths. Seeing how it has deteriorated over the years has been kinda sad and crazy! Oh, and don't ask me how many busted tiles I helped replace throughout that mall. Haha Thanks for the video!

This and the TRW video are my favourite so far. There is just something so enthralling about the 80’s. It feels like the world failed to become the place the 80’s promised.

Nothing beats a well done dead mall video. Well done gentlemen!

As always, I greatly appreciate you guys' dedication and care in documenting these abandoned spaces. I also worry intensely about the condition of your lungs with all the mold and mildew exposure.

man... what they did to that original, beautiful, immaculate food court is seriously an affront to all that is holy. jeeeez...

You Guys have always Kicked A**. I've been a subscriber of yours for years...NEVER have I been disappointed. Thanks you so much.Take care and stay safe 🤗...Donnie

In 1988 I was 22 years old. You wouldn’t believe how great of a time it was. The mall reflected America and the country was booming. You went there for everything. When you began dating your girlfriend it’s off to the mall for shopping, dinner and a movie. Then you bought an engagement ring at the jewelry store. It’s depressing what has happened. It’s not the country I remember.

Richland Mall was never a super busy mall. It is where all the "mall walkers" went so they could do laps without too many crowds. It only ever got busy around the holidays. Columbia Mall saw a lot more traffic, especially with the younger crowd. Columbiana Mall is still doing pretty good. As hot as it gets here, I wish indoor shopping malls weren't on the way out.

That intro was straight up badass guys awesome work! Been watching you guys forever and I recommend your videos to anyone I know who watches RU-vid. The quality of research and filming is a whole different level. Never stop!

I lived near here throughout the '90s and in the early '00s. Richland Fashion Mall felt like a big, open, bright, brass & glass crystal palace and was one of the two main malls in Columbia. The movie theater on the top was the main spot we saw every new release up to the Recession. The Harbison area far out of town began expanding in the late '90s and by the '00s had quadrupled in size, drawing lots of the shopping traffic from Columbia Mall, Dutch Square, and Richland Fashion. I love seeing it memorialized and appreciated here.

One thing I noticed whenever something gets repurposed for office space it closes not long after.

Thumbnail has some serious Rolling Giant energy

You are so incredibly close to my home. I spent many years breaking into Richland mall and skating with my friends.

Very neat video guys, and excellent job on the intro and the audio, I thought both the music and effects were very fitting for an 80's mall. I bet that chemical sign in the callcenter was likely a door leading to their server type room and had something to do with a battery backup and/or fire suppresion system for said room.

They should convert old abandoned malls into retirement homes for Gen X and Millennial's. Keep the food court, arcade, theater and cvs or something and turn the rest into apartments.

The special intro really set the mood! I super appreciate the full run time (feels like forever since we've had a proper nearly 1 hour video). Excellent exploration as always.

I used to go there when it was an open air mall in the 60's.

I live next to a mall that is alwyas changing - office space, empty stores, shifting food court, ever-changing stores - feels like the beginning of the end. I enjoy your videos but I find myself feeling sadly nostalgic for my youth when watching you wander an abandoned mall

now this is something i can watch while im supposed to be asleep

Hi. Guys! Rick Delair here! The loud buzzing was dry type transformers that step the 277/Y/480 volts down to 120/Y/208 volts for mostly 120 volt loads like incandescent lights and receptacles. The fluorescent and any HID lights were run in the 277/480 volt line, with them wired phase to neutral at 277 volts. The 120/208 volt stepped down lines could also supply 208 volt, usually 3 phase loads like electric motors, snd single phase for any 208 volt HID lights. 480 could also supply motors as well. There was 2 panels with the transformer between to supply both 3 phase voltage ranges. CFL bulbs replacing incandescent was an indicator of how long it was abandoned. LED has been standard for a while now, and I am using a fair amount of myself now. Crazy that incandescent is pretty much gone, as is fluorescent and HID. And yes, cool white 4100 K sucks! I would actually think those offices had mid range 3500K or even 3000 K warm white. Also possible is the crisp blue-white 6500 K Daylight or the super nasty 5000 K snow white, actually worse than 4100 K cool white! 🤮🤮🤮 the 6500 Daylight is actually not terrible, though. Cheers! 😋😋

Your abandoned malls episodes are my favorites because I get the 80s nostalgia .. You really made my day

The only other rooftop parking I've seen was a video about this..... Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. "On April 23, 1988, within minutes of the grand opening of a new Save-On-Foods store, a 6,400 square foot portion of the roof collapsed, sending the rooftop parking deck and 20 automobiles crashing into the produce section below."

those 3 colors gold teal pink always seem be a theme

Awesome video as always Bryan and Michael. Y’all always do the most awesome story telling on each location y’all explore. Keep up the great work guys.

Being from Birmingham, seeing that old Parisian logo is sending me back in time! 🤩

That gingerbread snowman was definitely the star of the episode. Nice one, guys! Thanks for the great video!

I’ve been watching you guys for years and I’ve seen your guys production value just get better every single video. This one definitely is the best. Doing great guys!

My husband, a welder, welded up the big marquee at the entrance. The company, Lexco Sales and Engineering has been gone since 2005. My husband retired at that time. He talked much about the round design and all the struts needed. He's been gone for 8 years now. He would have loved to see this.

Aw man that’s so sad to see it decaying like that

These abandoned malls make me sad to see them in such a state of decay, but the crazy thing is they’ve only been around for just under 35 years, wish they could be renovated back to their former glory and not into office complexes or completely destroyed to have new buildings built on top of them.

This mall was in my hometown and all of my earliest memories clothes shopping were here. I remember when Parisian closed, then Belk… in the late 90s it was so bright and there were all sorts of small shops between the big department stores. It went downhill FAST in the early 2000s. I had no idea it looked like this inside recently because other than the bookstore there really was nothing there. It’s sad to see this is the state it was in before they started demoing it.

The style of the interior is so re- art deco, amazing! The colours, the fixtures, the overall design, beautiful. They just cheaped out on plumming I guess. Great explore, I envy all the proper people that were able to see it on its glorious days

That gingerbread cutout is giving me “Rolling Giant” vibes. Just needs wheels!