An aging retail/commercial building on the Third Street Promenade was recently razed to make way for what developers plan will be a new, more modern three-story storefront.
The property, 1404-1408 3rd Street, was torn down this summer, more than three years after the building was sold by a private owner to Blatteis & Schnur Inc., according to an article published in the LA Business Journal in February 2019.
The building previously housed a Lush cosmetics retail location as well as Chilli Beans, a sunglasses store. Upper floors contained office space and served as the home of the Promenade Playhouse, a theater arts space. It was located between T-Mobile and Anthropologie, near the intersection of 3rd Street and Santa Monica Boulevard and just steps from the Santa Monica Police Department public safety kiosk.
Blatteis & Schnur, Inc., a 100-year-old retail leasing and brokerage firm, maintains a webpage for the project, which states an “estimated delivery” date of Q3 2023, about one year from now.
A digital brochure for the project (dated 2019) touts plans for a 22,500-square-foot three-story building with 50 linear feet of Promenade frontage, which the brochure advertises as a “built to suit retail flagship.” According to the 2019 LA Business Journal article, the previous building was listed at 14,594 square feet and was fully occupied at the time of the $24.5 million sale. Real estate websites list the age of the now-demolished building as 77, having been constructed in 1945 and renovated in 1993.
Until 2020, businesses on the Promenade were limited to traditional retail and commercial uses with some exceptions requiring additional permits; however, during the pandemic, Santa Monica City Council expanded allowed uses to include things like group residential, liquor stores, hotels and motels, medical and dental offices, tattoo or body modification parlors, and more.
emily@smdp.com
