A familiar gas station at 8555 Wilshire Boulevard could soon trade pump handles for penthouses. A development team has filed plans to demolish the corner station at Wilshire and Stanley Drive and replace it with an eight-story building that would bring about 72 apartments and ground-floor retail to the block. The site sits two blocks west of Metro’s new Wilshire/La Cienega subway stop, turning what was once a car-first stretch into a test case for transit-friendly Beverly Hills living as the city pushes more density toward rail stations.
As reported by Urbanize LA, the application comes from Stanley Wilshire, LLC, led by Bijan Radnia and Saeed Kohanoff. Their proposal calls for a mixed-use building with 72 residential units stacked above commercial space at street level. Urbanize LA notes that city records list Gabbay Architects as the project’s representative and that the plan would lean on density-bonus incentives to reach its proposed eight-story height.
Why the site is eligible
The parcel falls inside Beverly Hills’ Mixed Use Overlay Zone, an area that allows housing with street-level retail along designated stretches of Wilshire Boulevard. According to the City of Beverly Hills, projects in this zone need a Development Plan Review and can seek extra height and density through state and local incentive programs. The 8555 Wilshire lot is also flagged in the city’s City of Beverly Hills SB-79 baseline upzoning inventory as a site identified for added housing capacity.
Part of a growing wave near the station
Urbanize LA notes that the 8555 Wilshire plans join a cluster of new proposals near the Wilshire/La Cienega station, including a roughly 140-unit apartment project at the former Stinking Rose restaurant site. Together they reflect Beverly Hills’ broader shift toward concentrating more housing along the La Cienega corridor. Developers argue that being steps from the subway makes taller, denser projects more feasible, while neighbors and city planners are likely to weigh concerns over scale, traffic and community benefits as each project winds through review.
Transit changes the equation
The timing is no accident. Metro’s opening of Section 1 of the D Line extension this spring brought the Wilshire/La Cienega station online and cut transit travel times to downtown. LA Metro announced that Section 1 stations opened for passenger service on May 8, 2026, a milestone local planners frequently point to when discussing why transit-adjacent sites like 8555 Wilshire are now drawing more ambitious housing proposals.
What’s next
Before anything actually changes on the corner, the project must secure formal entitlements, including any density-bonus approvals and a Planning Commission Development Plan Review. The schedule will hinge on staff analysis and a series of public hearings. The design firm listed in initial records, Gabbay Architects, has a track record with Beverly Hills projects and is likely to lead the design work and presentation materials if the application moves forward. City planning staff will post official notices and hearing dates if and when a formal application is accepted for entitlement review.
