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BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The National Park Service has filed that the former headquarters of Sunset Magazine in Menlo Park is eligible for a historic listing, making it harder for a developer to build towers reaching 461 feet in height.
The property at 80 Willow Road isn’t officially on the National Register of Historic Places because the owner objected to the listing, but the California Environmental Quality Act requires the property owner to complete an environmental impact report regarding the history.
“Mitigation could include requiring the project proponent to preserve the existing building, or to adopt design modifications to avoid impacts,” consultant
Hank Brady said in a report for the Senate Housing Committee in April.
The California State Historical Resources Commission reviewed the property’s historic status on May 9.
Commissioners heard passionate public comment from both sides. Supporters talked about the importance of Sunset Magazine in California’s history, with a headquarters that reflected its approach to cooking, gardening, Western living and the California dream.
Housing crisis is historic
Opponents of the project talked about the housing crisis and said the listing was another example of “not in my backyard.”
“What’s truly historic is the housing crisis, and the devastating effects it has on Californians,” developer Oisin Heneghan said at the meeting.
The Menlo Park Historical Association worked with historic preservation consultants Alvin-Chris-tian Nuval and Robert Jay Chattel to nominate the property.
About the building
The 1951 office building, designed by Cliff May in the California Ranch architectural style, was unique for having floor-to-ceiling glass windows and sliding glass doors, “emphasizing the relationship between indoor and outdoor space,” Naval and Chattel said in a report.
The building was May’s first application of the California Ranch style to a commercial office building. Commissioners are required by the state Legislature to consider historical integrity, not economic considerations or social values, Commissioner Alan Hess said.
“Architecturally, I think it’s fantastic,” Commissioner Rene Vellanoweth.
“It does not have to be frozen in time. It needs to retain sufficient integrity to convey its significance,” Commissioner Janet Hansen said.
The commission’s recommendation was sent to Joy Beasley, keeper of the National Register of Historic Places. Beasley agreed with the recommendation on June 24, according to a weekly list of actions by the National Park Service.
Plans for property
Heneghan and his company N17 Development want to build three towers on the property with 675 apartments, 130 hotel rooms, 301,662 square fect of office, 36,973 square feet of retail and 1,453 parking spaces.
The towers would be the tallest buildings between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Heneghan is invoking the Builder’s Remedy, a provision in state law that allows developers to ignore local zoning rules in cities that were late in getting their housing plans approved by the state.
Vitaly Yusufov, the son of Vladimir Putin’s former energy minister, bought the seven-acre property in 2019. In the meantime, he’s renting out the building as a co-working office called Willow Workplace.
Heneghan declined an interview.
“We are heads down focused on the project,” he said in an email.
It’s a huge waste of land. Menlo Park downtown looks terrible and needs a modern interpretation of those times, not the actual buildings which could easily be moved to a different location. The time of huge asphalt parking lots is over. New underground parking should be built like in Seattle, beneath businesses, providides multi use Parking/business/ and inexpensive housing for people to rent or buy. It’s been 50 years of nothing for Cubberly and California Avenue P.A is worse than Castro Street in Mountain View! Lastly it’s so close to Caltrain that this to me Sunset is just past its time.
There is no housing crisis. There’s plenty of housing available at the market price. The Sunset property should be turned into a park that people can enjoy.
Putin’s got to have a place to go when the Ukrainians invade Moscow.
Given the historic immigration enforcement being carried out right now there will be a lot more housing stock available after both voluntary and involuntary deportations commence over the coming months and years (regardless of what your opinion about it is). There are several million illegal aliens living in the Bay Area. The ‘Historic Housing Crisis’ is a cynical developer slogan. The Hoover Tower is 285 ft. tall, they want to build apartment monstrosities 465 ft. tall!
Look at the roads around the site on which Menlo Park recently spent a small fortune narrowing and now the developers want to ADD tens of thousands of NEW commuters to this underparked monstrosity to further enrich a Russian oligarch.
Will the developer be providing Aeroflot shuttle service to avoid the gridlock this will create on the roads since that’s the ONLY way people will be able to get anywhere?
Shame on our local politicians who opposed reining in the worst of the Builder’s Remedy developers, showing they care more about campaign contributions and meaningless virtue signalling that us, their constituents.
This take is completely out of touch. First off, the Sunset building isn’t anywhere near downtown Menlo Park—it’s tucked into a quiet residential area off Middlefield. So claiming it’s some kind of urban blight just makes it clear you don’t know the geography. Second, trying to compare Menlo Park to Seattle is laughable. You’re talking about a city of over 700,000 versus one with just over 30,000. The scale, infrastructure, and community needs couldn’t be more different. Forcing big-city “solutions” like underground parking and dense mixed-use developments into low-density suburbs doesn’t automatically equal progress—it often just means ignoring the actual character and needs of the community. And hey, if Seattle’s model is so inspiring to you, maybe go live there. Just try not to step on any used needles or human feces on your way to the nearest overpriced micro-apartment. Urban development isn’t one-size-fits-all. Pretending it is just makes your argument sound naive, not progressive.
Comment above was directed to the first post… John S