A developer in Menlo Park has submitted an application with latest visuals for its project on the previous Sunset Magazine campus. It includes plans for 4 buildings that may include 665 latest residential units, a 130-room hotel, 324,000 square feet of office space, a Montessori school and nearly five acres of park and green space.
The development – positioned at 80 Willow Road, just north of downtown Palo Alto and adjoining to the San Francisco Creek – if built, can be the tallest in San Mateo County.
Development company N17 proposed the huge latest development. To get its project approved, the corporate is counting on a provision of state law called the “Builder's Remedy,” which allows developers to propose projects that transcend local zoning in cities that lack state-approved housing, so long as 20% of the housing in the event is taken into account reasonably priced. Menlo Park had no approved housing between January 2023 and March 2024, allowing N17 to propose its original plan in July 2023.
To meet the necessities of the developer agreement, 133 homes in Willow Park will probably be offered to people earning as much as 80% of the realm median income, “taking much-needed steps to help provide stable and affordable housing for low-income residents,” N17 said in a press release.
However, anyone earning 80% of the median income in Menlo Park can hardly be considered “low-income.” The median household income in San Mateo County is $145,388, meaning a household earning $116,304 could meet the minimum threshold for considered one of the apartments.
“As a local resident, I have a vested interest in growing the community to meet the needs of today's Californians,” N17 founder Oisín Heneghan said within the press release. “While the magazine's offices were an appropriate use of the property when it was built in 1951 and California's population was one-fifth of what it is today, today people need and deserve housing in prime locations, not vacant office buildings or long commutes. California's housing crisis requires all of us to embrace change.”
The project has modified shape several times because it was first announced in July 2023. At the time, N17 had planned a 328-foot-tall tower with over 20 stories. Then in December, a brand new proposal showed three towers with 805 residential units spread across three buildings.
The property's owners are a bunch whose key executives include Vitaly Yusufov, the son of a former high-ranking Russian government official with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the New York Times reported in 2019. Operating under the name Willow Project LLC, they bought the previous Sunset Magazine site in 2018 for $72 million, in keeping with San Mateo County Recorder's Office records. The purchase was made in money, county records show.
Sunset Magazine left its Menlo Park location several years ago and announced in 2015 that it will move to Jack London Square in Oakland.
image credit : www.mercurynews.com