Beverly Hills, California issued the building permit on October 10 for a seven-story apartment building at 55 N. La Cienega Blvd., where The Stinking Rose garlic restaurant used to be. The permit lists 140 apartments, shops on the ground floor and three levels of parking underground. Its reported value is $63 million.
The firm that arranged the construction loan says it is expected to be "the largest residential complex in Beverly Hills' history." Getting here took ten years of plans.
Ten years from hotel plans to a permit
The owner has held the site since October 2014, according to the Marcus & Millichap release. Urbanize LA reported that developer Abraham Assil's Westland group paid $17 million for the land and filed its first plans in May 2016.
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Those first plans were hotels. By 2021 the proposal was an eight-story hotel with 216 rooms, and city planners recommended against it. One earlier version had been a 10-story building with 270 apartments.
The owner switched to housing. In November 2023 the City Council approved a 105-unit building with 11 affordable apartments, the Beverly Press reported. It was the first project approved in the mixed-use zones the city created in December 2020, according to the same paper.
Then it got bigger. In March 2025 the Planning Commission approved the version now permitted, 86 feet tall with 140 units, on a 3-2 vote, the Beverly Press reported. Assil called it a "catalyst for change" for that corner of the city.
How the building doubled
The Beverly Press reported that zoning would normally allow about 70 apartments on the lot. The permit names the reason it can hold twice that: a "100% stackable density bonus (AB 1287)."
AB 1287, signed in 2023, lets a project that already earned California's standard density bonus stack a second one by setting aside more apartments for lower- and moderate-income renters. Together the two can reach 100%, the law firm Cox Castle explains. Here, 22 of the 140 apartments are reserved: 11 for low-income and 11 for moderate-income households.
The approved plan has four studios, 111 one-bedrooms and 25 two-bedrooms, according to the Beverly Press. The permit adds a roof deck with a pool, amenity rooms and a residential office.
The money and the train
In June, Marcus & Millichap said it had arranged an $85 million, four-year construction loan from a national bank for the project's owner, described only as a private investor. LA YIMBY named the developer as Westland Development Group.
The loan is bigger than the permit value. Permit values are the construction estimates filed with the city, not total budgets or contract amounts.
The site sits just north of Wilshire Boulevard, across the street from the Wilshire/La Cienega subway station, according to the Beverly Press. That station opened May 8 with two others on the first leg of the D Line extension, "after more than 10 years of construction," the paper reported.
Where the descriptions differ
The permit and the 2025 approval both describe a seven-story building. The financing release and LA YIMBY say six. The approval lists 19,055 square feet of commercial space and 172 parking spaces; the release says 13,303 square feet and 177 spaces. The permit gives no floor area or parking count, so we go with its seven stories and 140 apartments.
No one has published an opening date. The construction loan runs four years.
How we count
The permit comes from Beverly Hills building permit records and was issued October 10, 2026. The value is the valuation reported on the permit, not a contract amount. The owner, lender and approval history come from the reporting and announcements linked here.
See the latest permit numbers on our Beverly Hills city page, updated weekly.
Sources
- Marcus & Millichap, "Marcus & Millichap Capital Corporation Arranges $85 million in Construction Financing for Beverly Hills Mixed-Use Development" (June 12, 2026): ir.marcusmillichap.com
- LA YIMBY, "Construction Financing Secured For 140-Unit Project At 55 North La Cienega Boulevard In Beverly Hills" (June 2026): layimby.com
- Urbanize LA, "Proposed Eight-Story Hotel Faces Opposition in Beverly Hills" (January 12, 2021): la.urbanize.city
- Beverly Press, "Beverly Hills hears appeal for mixed-use project" (August 2023): beverlypress.com
- Beverly Press, "Beverly Hills council approves La Cienega project" (November 2023): beverlypress.com
- Beverly Press, "Beverly Hills commission approves mixed-use project" (March 19, 2025): beverlypress.com
- Beverly Press, "Metro D Line opens in Miracle Mile May 8" (March 4, 2026): beverlypress.com
- Cox, Castle & Nicholson, "AB 1287: Legislature Creates an (Additional) Density Bonus for Very Low- and Middle-Income Households" (October 27, 2023): coxcastle.com
- City of Beverly Hills building permit BS2406883.
- Photo: Wilshire/La Cienega station entrance, by ECTran71, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More from Morningline Research
More numbers: Beverly Hills, CA building permit activity, updated weekly.
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