MENLO PARK — Time Inc., the parent company of Sunset Magazine, confirmed Thursday that it is exploring options that could include the sale of the magazine”s iconic Menlo Park headquarters.
“We”re taking a critical look at the facility,” said Time spokeswoman Jill Davison. “We”ve engaged the local real estate market in Menlo Park to help us better understand the value of the campus.”
There are “absolutely no plans” to sell the magazine, Davison said.
For decades a Bible of Western living, Sunset Magazine has hosted thousands of visitors every since its Menlo Park campus opened in 1951. The building was designed by Cliff May, an architect known for developing the modern ranch-style architectural movement.
Sunset”s sprawling site includes gardens that are divided into climate zones that match different parts of the West, where plants can be tested for their viability in places as diverse as the desert and the rhododendron forests of the Pacific Northwest. There”s also a test kitchen for recipes featured in the magazine.
Time Inc.was spun off by Time Warner in June and went public as a separate company in August. It recently sold the Birmingham, Ala., headquarters of its Southern Progress group.
The sale of hard assets like real estate has been a trend in publishing for several years, said Ken Doctor, a media analyst with Outsell.
“So much of the value of publishing is tied up in the hard asset of real estate now because the profit value and good will value of publications has declined so markedly,” he said.
“One thing you try to do to manage your business is to harvest that value,” Doctor said. “We”ve seen so many buildings sold and newspapers move into smaller rented headquarters. We haven”t seen that so much with magazines.”
Time has more than 90 publications, including Time Magazine, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Southern Living, Entertainment Weekly and Travel and Leisure.
Sunset started as a pamphlet distributed by Southern Pacific Transportation Company on its trains, and was designed to lure Eastern tourists to the West, preferably on SP trains. The magazine was sold to employees in 1914, and was acquired by Lane Publishing in 1929, which ran the magazine until its sale to Time Warner in 1990. Time Warner reorganized it under the Southern Progress group.
Sunset also publishes the Western Garden Book, which has served as a guide for gardeners.
Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419 Follow him on Twitter.com/petecarey
