The final countdown: Toys R Us in its stretch run for closure at Columbus Park Crossing

It's a process that began with a bankruptcy filing in September, spiraling from there to a liquidation sale starting in late March.

Now, after having cleared out much of its inventory of toys and baby goods, the Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores at 5555 Whittlesey Blvd., at Columbus Park Crossing, is in its stretch run toward turning out the lights for good.

The final day for the former retail shrine to all that brought glee to the eyes of children in the Chattahoochee Valley for more than 30 years is scheduled to close its doors on June 28.

Staff did not wish to comment Tuesday on the approaching closure, but a simple phone message on the retailer's phone for those customers still needing something perhaps conveyed all that remains to be said in light of the somber moment.

"We would like to thank you for shopping with us for over 70 years and we appreciate your kind expressions as we close our doors," said a recording.

Inside the store, there was a mix of shelves loaded with merchandise that included toy trucks and action figures priced at 50 percent to 70 percent off, and others starkly vacant and cordoned off with caution tape. A sign proclaimed that all furniture and fixtures are for sell.

Toys R Us has had a decades-long run in Columbus. It has done business at Columbus Park since 2002, relocating that year from 3150 Macon Road in Midtown Square Shopping Center, where it had operated at least since the mid-1980s. A Ross Dress for Less store is now in that Macon Road spot once inhabited by Toys R Us.

The loss of Toys R Us, which was a "must" for many parents when shopping for their youngsters during the holidays and for birthdays, has resonated as the going-out-of-business sale has unfolded. "Toys R Us is going out of business, they’re going away," a woman said as the liquidation began in Columbus. "Your children will never shop at a Toys R Us."

For Columbus Park Crossing, the loss of Toys R Us is the third major retailer to succumb financially along Whittlesey Boulevard in little more than a year, with Sears shutting its large department store in the spring of 2017 as part of a round of closures by its struggling parent company. Electronics and appliance retailer hhgregg also closed just over a year ago after its bankruptcy quickly transitioned to the total liquidation of the company. Sears also eliminated all of the Kmart locations in the Columbus-Phenix City market last year.

The subsequent question with the local Toys R Us store now preparing to go dark is what will ultimately fill the space at Columbus Park Crossing, a power shopping and dining hub on the city's north side. The former Sears and hhgregg properties remain vacant, while a new Academy Sports and Outdoors store opened two weeks ago about a mile away.

"It’s just representative of the changing way that the American consumer buys products," Jack Hayes, a commercial real-estate broker with KW Commercial in Columbus, said recently of the empty Sears and hhgregg locations as news approached of Toys R Us throwing in the financial towel for good.

He pointed out that the idea of heading out to a large shopping center or mall for a major spending spree to buy lots of things at one time has become somewhat old fashioned in a technology-laden retail environment in which online seller Amazon has become king as consumers make more and more purchases by computer or smartphone.

This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 5:31 PM with the headline "The final countdown: Toys R Us in its stretch run for closure at Columbus Park Crossing."