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What will be, will be. It has a certain logic for Jim Cogan, the Menlo Park official responsible for economic development in the city.
Mr. Cogan will be taking a laissez faire attitude if Time Inc. decides to sell its properties at 80 and 85 Willow Road, home to Sunset Magazine since 1951.
Asked if he would advocate to keep Sunset in Menlo Park, Mr. Cogan was brief. “The short answer is ‘No,'” he said. “I’m a big proponent of allowing the market to do what the market needs to do.”
“Of course, it would be a loss to Menlo Park from a cultural significance standpoint and it is a great community builder,” he added.
From Mayor Ray Mueller, the news elicited a mixture of sadness and resolve. “If they leave, I just think it’s a tremendous loss for the city,” Mr. Mueller said. “Obviously we’ll make ourselves available to see if there’s anything we can do to keep them staying, but it’s very concerning.”
Sunset’s employees were informed of the situation on Nov. 7, Jill Davison of Time Inc., Sunset’s parent company, told the Almanac.
The company is in the process of engaging a local real estate agent, Ms. Davison said.
Time Inc. has no plans to sell either Sunset Magazine or Sunset Publishing Corp., she said.
The seven-acre property — a five-acre parcel and a two-acre parcel across the street from each other at Willow and Middlefield roads — is zoned C-1 for administrative and professional offices.
Tax bump
With a sale would come property reassessment at current market rates and an increase in property taxes.
“Not to be too cold, but when the property turns over, it will be a big property tax bump for the city,” Mr. Cogan said.
As for buyers, among “the usual suspects” would be developer Roxy Rapp, who owns property nearby, the Sobrato Organization and Google, “which seems to be buying everything,” Mr. Cogan said.
“I’d love to see maybe a cool restaurant,” he said. “The city manager is always telling me we need a movie theater in town. … I would not be interested in having housing there.”
A heavy hand
Whatever happens, the developer will face a demanding process for any project that involves demolishing buildings, according to two commercial real estate agents.
But both predicted that the current buildings will go.
“It’s one story and there are all those gardens around it,” said a commercial broker familiar with the area and who requested anonymity. “It’s a gorgeous piece of property. … It will really be interesting to find out what the city wants there and what they will allow.”
“These places would be phenomenal if they could be developed,” the commercial broker said, but added that any project that increases population density would need neighbors’ approval.
Menlo Park residents “don’t want change,” the broker said. “If Silicon Valley moved to Wichita, Kansas, it would please Menlo Park tremendously. … The City Council and the people in the neighborhood will have a heavy hand as to what goes in there.”
“Change is going to happen whether you like it or not,” the broker said. “Managed change should be a positive.”
Almost certainly, a prospective buyer would propose changing the commercial zoning to allow residential construction, because that “drives the highest price,” said Sam Wright, a senior vice president for Cassidy Turley Commercial. Mr. Wright has sold several commercial properties in Menlo Park, including the Roger Reynolds nursery, he said.
“Menlo Park real estate is at — or near — an all-time high and doesn’t appear likely to change in the near term,” he said. A Menlo Park address carries real prestige, but the city is “difficult” in terms of getting permission to build, he said. “A difficult entitlement environment does depress the value of a piece of property,” he added.
The campus
In 1951, Sunset moved from San Francisco to its landmark campus in Menlo Park. In 1952, locals Bill and Mel Lane took over company operations from their father, Laurence W. Lane, who had bought the magazine for $65,000 in 1928, when it was a fledgling travel magazine.
After looking at several locations in the Bay Area — “Hillsborough wouldn’t have us,” said Mel — the Lane family settled on Menlo Park.
Sunset was one of the first tenants in the city’s innovative garden office zone, established under Mayor Charles Burgess, according to a 1998 Almanac article by Marion Softky. “There were no electric signs, no commercial retail and no manufacturing. It was perfect,” said Mel Lane.
Residential architect Cliff May designed his first commercial building to resemble an early Spanish ranch home. Set on five acres adjacent to San Francisquito Creek, the adobe building with the patios and test kitchens was surrounded by spacious gardens designed by Thomas Church. “It became a laboratory for western living and model for what the magazine promoted,” said Bill Lane in the 1998 article.
The elegant new headquarters also became a popular tourist destination as Gray Line made it a stop on its tours, and residents brought friends and out-of-town visitors to peer into the kitchens and stroll through the gardens. There was a time when 75,000 people a year took the Sunset tour, Ms. Softky wrote.
The Lane brothers sold the company to Time Warner in 1990 for $225 million. Mel Lane died in 2007 and Bill Lane in 2010.
In recent years, the Sunset headquarters at 80 Willow Road has hosted an annual “Sunset Celebration Weekend” event for two weekend days in the spring, when thousands of people visited the campus for cooking demonstrations, wine seminars, and programs on gardening, home designs and green living.
The Sunset property is zoned for a type of use ( C-1 Administrative and Professional District, Restrictive) which permits but which is not unique to its current use. If it is sold with that current zoning then the City has no alternative but to allow the new owner to redevelop the property for any use which meets the current zoning.
If the citizens want to do something different with the Sunset property then they should find a way to purchase the property.
An image of greedy, salivating developers and real estate brokers simply explodes out of this article. How truly sad that this treasure must meet such a distasteful fate. I guess those of us with a sense of local history who were born and raised in this area have to acknowledge the apparent fact that just about everything these days is driven by avarice. The sale and development of the Sunset properties will be a tragic loss.
I suggest an all-BMR housing project. We have a waiting list of deserving people who need a place to live in Menlo Park. This is a great opportunity to do something that is sensitive to our jobs/housing imbalance that creates more affordable housing throughout the city.
Whoever the new tenant is, perhaps the City can encourage them to maintain the gardens and allow them to be open to the public periodically.
To my knowledge, the City government itself does not need any additional office space, but if it did it would be a property worth considering.
TAT-I’m with you. I hate to send the end of such an era, but no doubt many would say that the property is “under-utilized.” I’m sure it’s not a matter of if Sunset will sell, but when. Being along the creek it would be nice if future development respected the habitat corridor.
In that same area, look out for USGS pulling out in the next few years. The land is too valuable for its current usage. Many offices are empty and not being filled.
With all of the hullabaloo about the ECR development, it would be great to see Willow Rd extended to ECR. It’s the logical thing to do. Hope that is on the table, and factored in with the inevitable redevelopment of the Sunset property.
Interesting comments. I’m all for BMR housing (and housing for homeless vets), but I can’t imagine that the Linfield Oaks community would EVER support that kind of development to happen. And I agree with the extension of Willow Road to El Camino….but I suspect that will meet the same resistance.
Menlo Park Economic Development Manager Jim Cogan also said this in his interview with the Almanac:
“Of course, (Sunset leaving) would be a loss to Menlo Park from a cultural significance standpoint and it is a great community builder.”
—“Asked if he would advocate to keep Sunset in Menlo Park, Mr. Cogan was brief. “The short answer is ‘No,'” he said. “I’m a big proponent of allowing the market to do what the market needs to do.””— And another quote from Mr. Cogan, —“”Not to be too cold, but when the property turns over, it will be a big property tax bump for the city,” Mr. Cogan said.”—
Clear to me who the enemy is. Mr. Cogan is the enemy in this situation. The above comment was added to the article later by Dave Boyce, likely in an effort to make Cogan look slightly less evil. But Cogan is in good company with Time Warner bean-counters, and developers hoping to laugh their way to the bank. And Peter Carpenter is not doing us any good either. Menlo Park was once a great place to live. Now it is a good place to live. Greed is poised to make Menlo Park a bad place to live. How sad.
Our very own City Council, elected to look after the best interests of the citizens of Menlo Park could turn out to be the enemy here too – if they up-zone the property so that Time Warner can profit more on the sale, and the new owner can profit as much as possible on what gets built on Sunset’s grave. Please, City Council, you have already done so much damage. On the future development of the Sunset property, take some lessons from Portola Valley, Atherton, and Monterey/Carmel. No high-density.
Losing Roger Reynolds and Sunset in this short amount of time is just staggering. We need the suburban equivalent of Peninsula Open Space Trust to come in an purchase properties like these and preserve them for future generations. Greed and profits cannot always win.
“And Peter Carpenter is not doing us any good either.”
Why not? I have simply challenged those who want nothing to change to, for once, step up and put their money where their mouths are.
Put a parcel tax on the ballot to buy and preserve the existing Sunset properties and buildings.
But don’t wring your wimpy hands and chant “village, village, village” – that does not work.
“And, yes, a lot of the blame falls directly onto the shoulders of the Lane family for selling this priceless asset to a huge corporation in the first place.”
And what counter offer did the citizens of Menlo Park offer the Lane family at that time? NONE.
When the citizens of Basel Switzerland were faced with the possible loss of some great art owned by a Basel resident they voted to tax themselves to buy the art!
“On 20 April 1967, a plane of Basel’s Globe Air crashed and took 124 people to their deaths. The disaster led to the first grounding of a Swiss airline since air travel had started. The main shareholder of Globe Air, Peter A. Staechelin was held personally responsible had to meet all financial demands. Peter A. Staechelin didn’t posses a lot of cash, but art worth millions was hanging in Basel’s Art Museum. His father had moved the family’s art collection into a foundation. The pictures could not be sold unless a family member got into severe financial distress. That moment had come.
When the family trust sold the first painting “La Berceuse” by Vincent van Gogh out of the country to the Unite States, Basel’s art world went into collective shock. The sale of more paintings loomed over the Basel Art Museum. Among the paintings viewed for a possible sale were two important paintings by Pablo Picasso: “Arlequin assis” (1923) and “Les deux frères” (1905).
Franz Meyer was the director of the Art Museum Basel. He managed the extraordinary and brought Peter A. Staechelin, the government, and businesses to one table. They reached an agreement that the city would be able to buy the two paintings by Pablo Picasso for 8.4 million Swiss francs. The deal was that if the private sector would bring in 2.4 million, the remaining 6 million would be paid the city.”
Basel’s parliament passed the urgent motion in record time, but voters opposed the credit and asked for a public ballot. The credit was under contention to the last, but Basel’s voters balloted in favour of the credit.
Pablo Picasso followed the student protests and the fact that the people had voted in a ballot to purchase his pictures. He responded by donating four of his paintings to Basel.
Would Menlo Park have done the same?
Where is Save Menlo now that there is something to save?
I dropped a note in the mail to Mark Zuckerberg, suggesting he purchase the Sunset campus, and use it as the primary Facebook (large) event center.
@Old Timer
“With all of the hullabaloo about the ECR development, it would be great to see Willow Rd extended to ECR. It’s the logical thing to do. Hope that is on the table, and factored in with the inevitable redevelopment of the Sunset property.”
The politics of getting that accomplished would be staggering. Too much resistance, especially from Linfield residents. Some are already resistant to having a bike/pedestrian tunnel under the train tracks. It would make the fight over Measure M look like a Sunday picnic.
*sigh* Here we go again.
I think that both the nursery and Sunset magazine were/are relics of a gentler past, a pre-Silicon Valley era when Menlo Park was a quiet suburb. This is not our reality any more, nor has it been for some time. The Lane family has done a tremendous amount for the area, facilitated in part by the proceeds of that sale to Time Warner. The magazine headquarters is no doubt a gorgeous, inspiring place to work but one can’t expect a publicly traded company with responsibility to its shareholders to encase it in amber for the sake of a small number of people. It is, in today’s Silicon Valley, under-utilized space. And I’ll take the open space preserves that the Lanes helped to buy over a suburban ranch-style office any day.
Here’s what I think about greed: it’s not just the developers. It’s also the residents–the ones who bought here and want to protect their investment by fighting decisions that are good for the area on a macro level. No one wanted the homeless shelter in their neighborhoods. Not many people seem to want the affordable housing that we desperately need because of overcrowded schools. And adding offices (jobs) to the area may add money to the government coffers but it also adds cars to our already busy streets, which really sucks when we are trying to drive somewhere ourselves.
I’m not suggesting that these are irrational emotions for people to have–we all want to protect our investment in a home, a school district, a community. More people, or busier roads, or turning a neighborhood street into a desperately needed thoroughfare that will change the character of a neighborhood–these are all things that it is rational for us to want to avoid. But let’s not pretend that we are less greedy than developers when we act on these instincts. And don’t demonize the city employee whose very job is to stimulate economic development within Menlo Park.
Those who have owned homes in this area for decades and mourn the simpler times might seriously consider selling in this crazy real estate market and moving somewhere more like the Menlo Park of yore. The more pragmatic crowd can participate in the lengthy process that will no doubt ensue once the land is sold–and advocate for whichever interests they find most compelling.
CCB:
well stated. I have lived here for 20 years and watched as parts of our town changed, primarily the residential portion where people are stuffing as much house on their lot they possibly can. Those same people, or many of them, are the ones whining about increased density. It’s ok for them to build monster homes, but god forbid someone else should build something they don’t like. A bunch of self absorbed hypocrites.
There are not very many unique historic aspects of Menlo Park and the Sunset Gardens us one of them! Out of all the letters I have read I like the idea that Mark Zuckerburg could buy it and make it entertainment area. If the building cannot be saved,then save the amazing garden showing the seven different climate zones. I have been th the Sunset Garden and I loved that most of all.
I don’t know what Peter Carpenter does for a living, but I do know that he has spent inordinate amounts of time tending to Menlo Park’s business, even though he lives in Atherton. Having written many letters to the editor to persuade people to vote against Measure M, which will flood El Camino with traffic to and from 600,000 square feet of office space, Mr. Carpenter now mocks the citizens here for his success. Well Mr. Carpenter — you seem to have lots of time and lots of persuasive talent. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? You seem to have plenty of both. How about you helping us to avoid this sad situation? Maybe you could work to get this on the ballot. I challenge you to do something besides criticize.
Ms. Muse – Reread all of the above comments. Pearl and I are the ONLY posters who have proposed a solution.
I have not mocked anyone but have simply challenged Menlo Park residents to rise to the challenge rather than just complaining.
Your solution is?????
I don’t understand a lot of the above comments about development. According to the article, Mr. Cogan said:
“I would not be interested in having housing there.”
and I just don’t see Menlo Park allowing high density offices either.
Menlo Park will allow whatever the developer requests. Have we ever seen otherwise? Sacrifice the Linfield Oaks neighborhood? City council won’t even blink. And other neighborhoods won’t protest either, and will just be relieved that it’s not happening to their neighborhood. Until it does.
Lessons learned certainly does not display the Basel spirit. IF MP residents want to preserve the Sunset sites they can put a parcel tax on the ballot and have the city buy these two parcels.
Where is Save Menlo now that there is a specific opportunity to save something?
Perhaps some Atherton residents will be interested in contributing toward the purchase price, which I expect could be upwards of $500mm.
If the city is going to adopt a laissez faire attitude, then I’m not sure why anyone will want to live here in another 10 years. Just wait, Mr. Carpenter. Atherton will be next! That land is far too valuable to allow it to remain underdeveloped.
“If the city is going to adopt a laissez faire attitude,”
“Laissez-faire (/ˌlɛseɪˈfɛr-/, French: [lɛsefɛʁ] ( listen)) is an economic system in which transactions between private parties are free from intrusive government restrictions, tariffs, and subsidies, with only enough regulations to protect property rights.”
Land use zoning is the exact opposite of laissez faire.
This is a very unfortunate example of greedy short-sighted corporate bottom-line thinking in action. My prediction is that Sunset Magazine will cease publishing within a few years, if not immediately upon leaving the site. Sunset is not the sort of periodical that can be produced by a hack crew out of a highrise office in Los Angeles. To retain its character, it would need a similar campus combining kitchens and gardens, which would need to be built from scratch at considerable expense. Needless to say, such a land-intensive campus would not be located in the Bay Area, which would result in enormous staff turnover. All that would remain of the magazine would be the masthead — in the process of turning the real estate into cash, Time Inc. will have destroyed the entire asset. I’ve seen it before. Farewell, Sunset, it’s been a good run.
That’s right, Peter. I thought you had an MBA? Saying “we’ll let the market decide” is the opposite of zoning, or maybe you could call it zoning-on-demand, so that is precisely laissez faire development. Not planned to meet resident or city needs.
LL – Menlo Park’s non-laissez faire zoning ordinances control what may be done on the Sunset parcels. Those zoning ordinances ARE the result of a citizen and elected official decision making process – not a free market approach.
“My prediction is that Sunset Magazine will cease publishing within a few years, if not immediately upon leaving the site.”
If they sold, and moved to a more rural area – with more cash in hand – this would increase their viability. Why on earth would they move to downtown LA? They’re trying to save money. Davis, perhaps?
I’m sentimental about the place; I don’t want to see it go. But this isn’t so easy:
1) If the city buys it – it would take a big chunk of cash, and a loss of whatever added taxes they could get from the new owner;
2) If the city suddenly assigns “historic” significance to the place, in reaction to this proposed sale – it would have a chilling effect on other businesses. Nothing quite like arbitrary government …
On the other hand – the idea of “below market rate” housing seems quite terrible; they don’t want to pick one of the most expensive areas for purposes of providing the cheapest housing. That’s just irrational.
I like the idea of convince Zuckerberg to buy it as an event center for Facebook … of course, that involves convincing him. But it seems the most viable.
Having Facebook buy the Sunset parcels for an event center would immediately result in the demand for event restrictions just like those placed on Allied Arts.
As CCB posted above “It’s also the residents–the ones who bought here and want to protect their investment by fighting decisions that are good for the area on a macro level.”
Angry neighbors/neighborhoods need to realize that their reputations precede them.
Wrong again, Peter. Sunset already procured permits to hold events, which they host frequently. It’s so much fun to throw stones at the poor people in Menlo Park. Because in Atherton, you know, they allow whatever, and the neighborhoods never fight anything.