Developer wants to nix restaurant, build multifamily in Encino

A San Fernando Valley-based developer aims to build a midsize multifamily project in the central Valley neighborhood of Encino. 

The project comes from Benelisha Group, a developer and property management company based in the same neighborhood. According to a brief description that was registered with the Los Angeles City Planning Department last week, Benelisha wants to demolish an existing restaurant and put up a mixed-use building with a total of 45 units. 

The project is located at 16610-16618 West Ventura Boulevard, on a busy part of the famous commercial strip that includes a Panera, a CitiBank branch and an Italian restaurant. 

Benelisha Group bought the quarter-acre property in 2019 for $6 million, according to property records. The seller was a family partnership. 

A one-story building went up on the property in 1957, according to property records, and has previously housed a heating and air company. Monaco, the restaurant and event space that currently occupies the space, describes itself as “a new European fusion restaurant open for fine dining and cocktails”; a video on the restaurant’s website also promotes it as a party destination. 

Benelisha had previously renovated the restaurant, according to the developer’s website. The firm was incorporated in 2012 and has built or renovated at least a dozen single-family homes. 

The project would add slightly more density to upper middle-class Encino, which has also recently seen some luxe sales. Last month a Luxembourgian businessman paid $18 million for a mansion in the neighborhood, and in January the “Black Panther” actor Michael B. Jordan listed his nearby estate for $13 million.