California Attorney General Robert Bonta has weighed in on the prolonged planning process for 80 Willow Road in Menlo Park, San Mateo County. More than two years have passed since N17 filed plans for the 665-unit development, dubbed Willow Park, and the most recent progress shared by the city in May was the latest determination of ineligibility for processing under Assembly Bill 2011. In the recent ten-page letter from the Attorney General to the city, Bonta declared that the reasons for delay range from improper to unlawful.
The ten-page letter detailed what the Attorney General describes as inaccurate interpretations of state law, violations of state law, and unlawfully requiring the applicant to fund the City’s outside legal counsel. The letter concludes by saying, “the City’s actions with respect to the Project application, as set forth above, would represent a violation of both laws,” referring to AB 712 and AB 2011.
80 Willow Road central plaza, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
80 Willow Road facade close-up, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
80 Willow Road apartment lobby view, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
Solomon Cordwell Buenz is the project architect responsible for the design. The development would include four structures, including a two-story preschool structure, a 15-story office complex, and two residential towers extending 33 and 39 floors. The largest structure is expected to rise 458 feet tall, making it the potential future tallest building in San Mateo County, surpassing the 317-foot Genesis North Tower.
Full build-out would include 665 residential units, 332,000 square feet of office space, 17,000 square feet of retail, and 164,000 square feet for the 130-key hotel. Of the 665 units, 100 would be deed-restricted as affordable to lower-income households.
Demolition would be required for the former Sunset Magazine headquarters, which was currently listed in the California Register of Historical Resources and was deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Willow Park Montesorri School, rendering by Solomon Cordwell Buenz
80 Willow Road, image via Google Satellite
In a press release shared with media, N17 founder Oisín Heneghan provided the following statement: “The Attorney General has made clear that Menlo Park cannot continue moving the goalposts or requiring a housing applicant to bankroll the City’s own resistance to approving housing… The State has now rejected every remaining legal basis the City asserted for denying streamlined approval. We look forward to working with the City to finalize approvals and begin delivering much-needed housing.”
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Oh, this is funny.
Comical? Practical? Realistic?
Once the precedent is set, you can just have three awkward towers standing alone. If only these communities didn’t fight tooth and nail against the gradual approach…
This is normal in Dallas & Houston. It’s what Menlo Park and other cities deserve for their failure to allow any meaningful development for the past 25 years. Redwood City has had to build up; it’s only fair that other cities now share that burden.
I dunno about all you transplants from Back East, but I have no desire for the Bay Area to turn into Dallas or Houston. Feel free to move there yourself though, dawg.
Scotty out here continuing to be a xenophobic leech that thinks he gets to dictate who gets to live where and what happens to property he doesn’t own and doesn’t live anywhere near.
I am gonna continue to push back against this absurd narrative foisted on us by people (mostly millennial tech bros) who voluntarily move here from wherever, into OUR home and seek to turn it into something that it’s not, and quite frankly, never should be.
I am hoping that the billionaire tax measure chases a lot of you creeps away from California for good.
Leave us alone and go overdevelop your own hometown dawg.
It’s their home now too. Why would you get more of a voice than anyone else?
Surely you’ve heard the term “sharing is caring”
Millennial Bay Area native here. That area used to be orchards. Even when I was a kid there were still some left along Lawrence Expressway etc. The Bay Area that you grew up in was turned into something it was not.
On what planet is Texas “back east”?
I totally agree! This is hideous – how can you just plunk a 33 and 39 story building in the middle of a sea of one and two story buildings? I feel we need fewer people in the State of CA, not more housing like this.
Would you rather live in Houston than the Bay Area?
I sure would like to pay Houston housing costs in the Bay Area! Stand alone developments like this can be found in almost every large metro in the country. Why not here? So MP NIMBY’s can protect their overinflated SFR values? Where are those same NIMBY’s children and grandchildren supposed to live, Houston?
You seem to be missing the point. Menlo Park is already suburban Houston. The question is whether it at least deserves a downtown like Houston. I’d take downtown Houston over suburban Houston any day of the week.
(comment directed at Scotty not Dirk)
Wow, the usual suspects are out in full force here. Go figure, when the project is in NIMBY central.
First off, not a tech bro. Blue collar dude and a veteran who had 9 housemates to make ends meet while attending school on the GI Bill, thanks to d***wads like Scotty who caused the housing crisis.
The question isn’t about having standalone high-rises but rather why we don’t build dense housing all the way from this parcel to Caltrain. Single family homes should not be sacrosanct. Property owners should have the freedom of choice for their own properties (for non-industrial uses) without neighbors vetoing it.
Bonta needs to go after Rockridge groups that are trying to block the TJ’s development and blocked the CCA redevelopment. This is adding up and will approach over 1,000 units.
I am mildly sympathetic to the TJ issue. Losing that grocer is a big micromobility concern.
The stupid agreements and funding BS that can’t allow a new grocer to come back on that Albertsons-owned land + non-profit funding issues… These elements of nonsense prevent us from ever achieving perfection when it comes to urban planning. Logistically, the senior homes probably don’t wanna deal with the commercial, but having the two shared is a major win for senior independence.
agree
+2. It ain’t laws of physics stopping a TJs at the Rockridge parcel. Contracts are human contrivances and can be bent with adequate will.
I hope this actually gets built.
It will become a tremendous nexus of startups and activity.
Why is no one mentioning the former Sunset campus, with its listing in the California Register of Historical Resources and deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places?
Because these designations (which, IMO, are unwarranted) don’t do anything to prevent housing from being built on this site.
This is just pure punishment for Menlo Park for being being provincial idiots who thought the rules did not apply to them but even the state I guess would not expect this outcome which is 39 story towers close to SFHs
And even more messed up this is not TOD and the homes near by are not rezoned under SB79. Pretty bad outcome. This will almost 100% drive and park. Nobody is taking transit here.
Overall the direction is good with these laws but hopefully we all can figure out we want development like this near our train stations and not in neighborhoods
agree. Menlo Park added some significant development right next to the Caltrain station just a few years ago – perhaps *that* should have looked more like this.
you *could* bike (7 mins) or take bus (13-14 mins) to the Caltrain station from here, but also agree that most probably won’t
Kind of. It’s 0.9 miles to Palo Alto station and 1.1 miles to Menlo Park station. Would having large buildings adjacent to Caltrain be ideal? Yes. But this is easy bike/scooter/shuttlebus distance to both Meta and Stanford.
Upzone everything south of Middlefield and problem solved!
People may be unaware but these would be the tallest two buildings in San Mateo Co
I’m doubting though this is what the developer wants to build. Now that they have MP cornered they can negotiate with a very strong hand
Having lived in apartments on either side of the creek from 2016 to 2025 (and biked/Caltrained everywhere working at Stanford and in SF) I consider this an excellent addition to my former neighborhood. 45% of Menlo residents are renters: a large, and largely silent, minority and this type of housing and development will serve them well. If Menlo city government is wise they will start to partner with the developer and get him and SCB to give them the building plans for free so they can build an identical complex on the Civic Center plot replacing the office spaces with city government and library and the Montessori school with MCC-based services to the community. If Menlo could be this forward thinking then maybe Stanford will take SCB’s same plans and put a third, identical, complex between the Palo Alto Caltrain and the Hoover Pavilion. With 1900+ new units close to the hospitals and Stanford, and great Caltrain service, this idea will no longer be “out of character” and market rates in the area might start to ease a bit. With that easing, then the unhoused in other areas might stand a chance of finding something. Fixing the horror of California’s housing problems should be led by Menlo, Stanford and others in the state who can enable good, realistic, change.
Really wish this was right on top of the caltrain station. These super dense builds need to be colocated with public transit, otherwise the nimby epithet of “traffic nightmare” will start to hold some truth.
Put 10,000 housing units on top of Stanford shopping center and its parking lot.