Colorado Boulevard Mini-Mall to Get Massage Parlor

Eagle Rock is about to get another massage parlor—next door to a banh mi sandwich shop and a pet supplies store.

The business will open in unit D of the mini-mall at 1916 W. Colorado Blvd., where a jewelry shop existed until a couple of months ago. A "City of Los Angeles Construction Site Notice" is currently posted on the front door of the empty space, identified as 641-square-feet in area. According to the notice, the "work description" on the construction site revolves around "change of use from jewelry store to massage parlor."

Andy Kao, a Bestall Construction Inc. contractor associated with the project, told Eagle Rock Patch the parlor would open in about a month and that he was not aware if it had a name yet.

The massage parlor’s scheduled opening comes at a time when mini-malls are in the news in Eagle Rock: According to a July 2 discussions at the most recent meeting of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, a Glendale-based real estate developer, Specialized Realty, is trying to get around the Colorado Boulevard Specific Plan in an effort to create three commercial spaces from a single building located at 1351 Colorado Blvd. 

Click here to read about that.

The Colorado Boulevard Specific Plan deems as a mini-mall any commercial development within a single building where retail businesses occupy more than one unit. To build a mini-mall along Colorado, developers are typically required to go through a so-called “exception” process from the Colorado Boulevard Specific Plan, which includes community feedback for or against the development.

But at the recent ERNC meeting, representatives for Specialized Realty told the ERNC board that they weren't building a mini-mall at 1351 Colorado Blvd. because they plan to create just one retail space—possibly a restaurant—plus two community-based services, such as a law office or a doctor’s office.

Further, the representatives told the ERNC that they had been advised by the Los Angeles Planning Department to seek a so-called “Director’s Interpretation” of the proposed development, an alternative to the exception process.

The parallels between 1351 Colorado and 1916 Colorado are noteworthy because the latter happens to be a precedent for the former.

“The owners of the mini-mall at 1916 Colorado are entitled to lease their storefront to any legal business—that's free enterprise, and that's cool,” ERNC Vice President David Greene told Eagle Rock Patch. “But what irks me is the reason why they're forced to rent the empty space to a service-oriented business rather than another good retail store or restaurant like the ones already there.”

Besides Rock Dog & Cat and Yum Yum Baguette, the six-unit mini-mall currently has an insurance office, a dental office and an empty space.

According to Kaye Beckham, a former president of the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Colorado Boulevard Design Review Board, the landlord of 1916 Colorado was told by the board a few months ago to limit the number of retail spaces in his mini-mall to two, as per the landlord's agreement with the city.

“He had to let go one of the retailers—which one was his choice,” Beckham told Eagle Rock Patch. “He appeared before us for a change of use and said he would find a doctor’s office or medical office but then he said that isn’t happening,” Beckham explained, adding that she understands it’s not easy to find such tenants.

Beckham said she spoke to the landlord about the upcoming massage parlor Thursday. The landlord assured her that “it’s 100-percent legitimate—a regular massage parlor—and I believe him wholeheartedly,” Beckham said, adding: “I find it hard to believe he would put somebody there who he knows is not good because he’d be in trouble.”

What bothers people such as the ERNC’s Greene, however, is the genesis of the 1916 Colorado Boulevard mini-mall. Instead of getting an exception to the Specific Plan, the owners of 1916 Colorado received a Director's Interpretation from the Department of City Planning, “who twisted the definition of mini-mall in the municipal code so that it didn't apply to their building,” Greene said, speaking in his personal capacity as an Eagle Rock resident.

“To achieve this, 1916 Colorado has to keep its retail tenancy below 30 percent of floor space, which is why there can only be two retail uses in the six-unit building,” Greene said, adding: “Instead of doing it the right way—with a public hearing, and an exception that either gets approved or doesn't—someone decided that a backdoor deal was better. So instead of a six-unit mini-mall, or no mini-mall, Eagle Rock gets an absurd hybrid—and in my personal opinion, that's not good for the neighborhood.”

For many people in Eagle Rock, not least the neighbors of the upcoming store on 1916 Colorado, there is also the question of being located near a massage parlor. Over the past few years, many massage parlors have gained the dubious distinction of being less in the business of physical therapy than in offering what their critics describe, only half-jokingly, as a “happy ending.” The term refers to what the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly documented as prostitution under the guise of therapeutic massage.

At last month’s ERNC meeting, for example, LAPD Senior Lead Officer Nina Preciado said in her monthly crime update that LAPD vice unit officers had investigated as many as 10 massage parlors in Eagle Rock. Four women at the businesses were arrested for prostitution, while two others were arrested for running massage parlors without a state massage therapy license.

Preciado said the LAPD vice unit did not want to disclose the addresses of the massage parlors because officers were planning to investigate them again and did not want the businesses to be alerted.