Former Tokyo Massage in Murrysville will become new home for dental practice

“Have you ever seen so much pink?” Rick Rivardo asked during a tour of the former Tokyo Massage parlor.

Rivardo and his wife, Lisa, are moving his dental practice from Golden Mile Highway in Monroeville to the top of Route 22 in eastern Murrysville, off Buena Vista Drive.

Lisa Rivardo said they’re happy to be turning the building — whose interior could generously be described as “Pepto-Bismol pink” — into “something much more innocent than the previous occupants.”

In late 2019, Hui Xu, a 46-year-old Chinese native who authorities said ran a string of local massage parlors as fronts for prostitution dens, pleaded guilty to human trafficking offenses. Xu admitted workers performed sex acts for clients at her four spa operations — three in Monroeville and Tokyo Massage Spa in Murrysville.

As Rivardo became aware of the building’s availability through a January 2020 sheriff’s sale, he discovered that despite being several different businesses over the years, it was still zoned for residential use. After successfully getting the zoning changed to a more appropriate business designation, he’s begun the process of transforming it into a dental office that will have four opertories, a lab, and kitchen and office areas.

“Plumbing is the big thing,” said Rivardo, who has been at his Monroeville location for 14 of his 20 years as a practicing dentist. “The floor is a big concrete slab, and that’ll have to get cut just for the plumbing,” Lisa added.

There’s also the matter of installing all the other necessary infrastructure to operate a dentist’s office. Rivardo said he hopes to be fully moved in by August and is excited by the visibility of the new location — his office will be one of the first things Route 22 commuters will see as they enter Murrysville heading west.

“Where we were in Monroeville, we couldn’t put a sign up out near the road,” Lisa said. “We sat right in the middle of three ZIP codes and that was great, but the visibility is just not good there.”

Last Friday, a work crew was busy doing demolition work. Lisa Rivardo was only too happy to do her part, sinking a sizable hammer into a bright pink wall that’s coming down.

“We’re just really excited to own instead of renting,” she said. “We’re waiting on the building permits, and then we’ll be ready to go.”