Love it or hate it. It was a San Diego landmark the nude girls sign above the Midway district in point Loma the calling card of the body shop strip club. In recent years it became more and more of an anachronism something out of San Diego's rowdy military past and now it will disappear completely. The Rock Church mega Christian congregation in Point Loma has bought the body shop after waging psychological warfare against the strip club for years. Joining me with more is San Diego Union Tribune reporter Peter Rowe. Peter welcome to the program. Thank you Maureen. Now Miles McPherson is the senior pastor of The Rock Church. What does he say about why the Church bought the body shop. He's issued a couple of statements about this actually over the years he's been calling the RA or the the body shop something of an eyesore that you know commuters have to pass by. Parents have to explain to their children and you know what is this nude girls thing over here. Because you really can't miss it when you come off Interstate 8 on Rosecrans it's bam you know right in your face. Now that's not just the body shop. There's also next door to it Les Girls which is equally famous and equally garish. So is the church the sole buyer. Now there are several several investors who have joined with the church to buy it. The only investor right now we know of is David Malcolm who's a former Port commissioner but he's he says he saw an opportunity to kind of clean up this gateway to point Loma do something nice for the community. It's quite a GEF. It's a one point two dollars billion sale on this property. Talk to us a little bit more about the what's been going on between the rock church and the body shop because that's kind of been the nemesis for MacPherson and the rock church for years hasn't it. Well yes I mean because many of Pastor Miles congregants pass into point Loma you know going by the body shop and going by Les Girls. So he has his mansion it numerous times as you know what. What a sad kind of sign of a broken world that it is. There's also a group that had been associated with the Rock Church I believe they're no longer in action but it was called Jaycees girls. It was a group that was ministering directly to women and men in the adult entertainment business. So some of the Jaycees girls had made a point of visiting the body shop. It was a fairly low key as I understand it. They would come in and give gifts to the two the dancers. But you know they were kind of cosmetics. They also handed out Bibles that were bound and pink leather kind of cute. And at the time at least initially there was sort of a detente where the body shop was you know at least welcoming the the Jaycees girls. But then later I was told by a veteran doorman from the body shop that when they heard about Miles McPherson still kind of railing against the body shop they decided no more. They just they just weren't going to have the visitations anymore. Now as you point out Peter famo Sandy Agins that new girls sign seems to have been in the Midway district forever. Can you give us some background on the body shop. Yeah I don't know that there is actually an official historian of the Body Shop but I went back into our archives. We saw a an ad. I think it was June 21st 1964 saying you know the body shop is now open. San Diego's never seen anything like it. So that appears to be about when they opened their doors. Now the man who owned it the longest bought it 1967. Now he died in 2012 and he had no heirs so he passed the property on to a group of about five employees and they were the ones who ended up closing it down. In November last November and selling it last month. Well actually in June. Why did they close it. This is something not unique to the body shop and I don't know how much the rock on the rocks pressure had to do with it. It seems really that strip clubs are caught up in a kind of a cultural current right now. There's so much free pornography available online that fewer people are willing to go out and you know kind of expose themselves as it were by walking and to one of these clubs plus you know then you would pay a cover charge you would have a two drink minimum. These are non-alcoholic drinks by the way. And the attraction I suppose was no longer there. The other thing of course that happened is that the naval training center was closed down and has since become a Liberty Station. So you no longer had this kind of captive audience of young men who are maybe out from under their parents for the first time in their lives . Now has the Rock Church said what it plans to do with the property now. Actually what the people of the Rock Church have been saying is they don't have any definite plans at the moment. I've heard rumors that they're looking at anything from a thrift shop to kind of a homeless center. But there is no definitive word yet on what they plan to do. And is there a rumor that there are negotiations between the church and the strip club next door. Well that's more than a rumor. Yes. I mean they have the Rock Church and their investors have approached Les Girls but Les Girls has said they're not interested in selling. OK. I've been speaking with San Diego Union Tribune reporter Peter Roe. Peter thank you.
Love it or hate it, the NUDE GIRLS sign above the Midway District in Point Loma was a San Diego landmark. It was the calling card of the Body Shop strip club.
Soon, it will disappear completely.
The Rock Church, a mega-Christian congregation that has multiple locations across San Diego County, including in Point Loma, has bought the Body Shop building.
The church has not yet said what it plans to do with the building.
Peter Rowe, a reporter with The San Diego Union-Tribune, joins Midday Edition on Thursday to talk about his piece on the past and future of the building.
