An artist’s rendering of the proposed Willow Park project on the former Sunset Magazine headquarters site in Menlo Park. The development would include the tallest building in the Bay Area outside of San Francisco.

The former Menlo Park headquarters of Sunset Magazine could be replaced by a four-building project that rises to 431 feet, potentially becoming Silicon Valley’s tallest building.

Developer N17 formally submitted an application for the project at 80 Willow Road, branded as Willow Park, on May 24. It includes 1.7 million square feet of apartments, offices, retail and restaurant space, a hotel, Montessori school and public parks, in one of the most ambitious projects that the city has seen.

Plans call for three towers of 271 feet, 367 feet and, in what would be the tallest building in the Bay Area outside of San Francisco, a 431-foot high-rise with condos and a 130-room hotel. San Francisco’s tallest building, Salesforce Tower, measures more than 1,000 feet in height.

An artist’s rendering of the proposed Willow Park project on the former Sunset Magazine headquarters site in Menlo Park.

The project would be a significant change for the 6.7-acre site, with glassy towers replacing the 1950s, one-story adobe ranch-style buildings that once housed Sunset Magazine, which would be mostly demolished.

“As a local resident, I have a vested interest in helping the community grow in a way that matches the needs of today’s Californians. While the magazine offices were an appropriate land use when it was constructed in 1951 and the population of California was one-fifth of what it is now, 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,” N17 founder Oisín Heneghan said in a statement.

San Francisco YIMBY, a real estate website, first reported news of the application.

The site is owned by a company controlled by Vitaly Yusufov, son of former Russian energy minister Igor Yusufov. The younger Yusufov bought it in 2018 from Deutsche Bank and Embarcadero Partners, which raised concerns at the bank at the time when its ties to Russia were under scrutiny.

An artist’s rendering of the proposed Willow Park project on the former Sunset Magazine headquarters site in Menlo Park that would include housing, office space and public parks.

The project contains 665 homes, including 133 that would be affordable for people making less than 80% of the area median income. That would enable N17 to seek the so-called “builder’s remedy” that allows it to streamline the approvals process by including 20% affordable housing on site. If built, the project would increase Menlo Park’s number of affordable homes by 24%.

SCB is the project architect.

Plans call for 324,000 square feet of office space, at a time when many local tech companies are shrinking their real estate due to remote work. Other challenges facing all major Bay Area projects include high construction costs, higher interest rates that have made obtaining financing more challenging and weaker demand for housing.

If approved, construction is expected to take around three years.

Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf

EDITOR’S NOTE: For a more extensive view of the developer’s plans, visit their website at https://willowpark.life.