Mercer Island hearing examiner hears design review for Herzl preK–8 school; staff backs approval amid neighbor parking objections

Hearing Examiner Phil Albrecht presided over a public design review hearing Oct. 31, 2025, on city file DSR‑2059, a proposed three‑story prekindergarten through eighth‑grade school and office building at 3700 East Mercer Way for the Herzl campus. City staff recommended approval with conditions; applicants asked the examiner to grant multiple deviations from Mercer Island Municipal Code (MICC) standards for parking, loading, tree replacement and landscape requirements.

The project team — led by architect Anjali Grant, arborist Ian Scott (Davie Resource Group) and landscape architect Karen Keast — described a three‑story building set back from East Mercer Way with classrooms on the lower two stories, a gym/multipurpose room and office space. Grant said the building steps down toward the north, uses muted colors and a recessed entry, and that a planned standing‑seam look would be achieved with similarly sized panels because standing‑seam cladding “does not meet structural requirements.”

The applicants requested relief on multiple design standards identified in the staff report. Key requests included: allowing about 52% compact parking stalls of 105 on‑site stalls and a 25% cooperative‑parking reduction with the adjacent synagogue property; a finding that an on‑street curb loading space is infeasible; alternative facade and roofline modulation techniques on facades not facing a public way; and authorization of fee‑in‑lieu or a site‑specific tree‑replacement plan in lieu of the MICC prescriptive 6:1 replacement ratio.

On parking, the applicant said the site will have 105 spaces (50…