A nondescript commercial building near the busy intersection of Van Nuys and Victory Boulevards could be replaced with multifamily housing, according to an application filed in December with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning.

The proposed project, slated for a roughly quarter-acre site at 14557 Friar Street, calls for razing the existing single-story structure to make way for a new seven-story building containing 42 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments above 1,038 square feet of ground-floor retail space and semi-subterranean parking for 42 vehicles.

Requested entitlements for the project are centered on Transit Oriented Communities incentives, which would permit relief from zoning requirements for on-site open space and building line setbacks.  In exchange, five of the proposed apartments as deed-restricted affordable housing at the extremely low-income level (30 percent or less than the area median income).

City records list the owner and applicant behind the project as Los Rubanenkos, LLC, an entity based out of the existing building which acquired the property for $1.27 million in 2014.

Los Angeles-based construction and architecture firm Ketter is serving as the project's representative, which is depicted in renderings as a contemporary podium-type building clad in a combination of stucco and metal panels.

The project, which is among a handful of similar multifamily developments in the works near the Van Nuys Civic Center, sits less than a half-mile north of Metro's G Line busway - which is poised for new grade separation and other speed enhancements in the coming years.  One block east, a new light rail line within the median of Van Nuys Boulevard is scheduled to break ground next year.