“Grieving,” “mourning” and “heartbroken” are just some of the words that supporters of saving the Providence Heights campus used in the wake of a settlement between the city of Issaquah and the campus’ owner, Plateau, Campus, LLC that allows the entire property to be demolished.

The settlement, reached on Oct. 24 in King County Superior Court, relinquishes the city of Issaquah from any financial obligation to Plateau Campus, a subsidiary of Kirkland-based Churchome, which was known until earlier this month as The City Church. In return, Churchome is allowed to “immediately … proceed under the demolition permit” the city issued in June, according to the settlement documents.

The Issaquah City Council deliberated over the matter in an executive session on Oct. 24.

The settlement marks the end of an intense battle that has been raging between Churchome, which has owned the campus since 2008, and historic preservation groups such as the Sammamish Heritage Society and the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.

“This campus is of enormous significance to Washington State due to its unique architectural design and it will be a tragedy to lose it,” said Jennifer Mortensen, preservation services coordinator for the Washington Trust. “The Washington Trust is very disappointed that the City of Issaquah decided not to defend its own historic preservation program or the recently designated landmark campus.”

“Shame on Mayor [Fred] Butler of Issaquah. Shame on the Issaquah City Council,” said Paula Harper-Christiansen, a member of the Sammamish Heritage Society. “Shame on Mr. [Wayne] Tanaka, the city’s attorney. They sold out the community and the residents, now and in the future.”

Preservationists argue that the Providence Heights campus, which was originally built in the 1960s as a college for the Sisters of Providence, holds a significant place in the history of women’s education, particularly in the Catholic Church. The college was built at a time when higher educational opportunities for women, especially those who chose a religious vocation, were far behind those open to men.

Churchome wishes to demolish the property so that the land can be sold at a higher value than a piece of property with a designated landmark. Churchome stated in the lawsuit that it needs the money from the higher sale value to further its religious mission at its other locations.

The Issaquah School District voted in July 2016 to condemn the property as the site for two new schools, after Churchome had rejected an offer the district made to the church.

According to Mortensen, the Washington Trust “had been working with an investor who offered to purchase the entire site, retain all the existing buildings and develop a veterans village complex on the campus.”

She explained that the investor had also “identified another site for the School District to build the new schools, and was willing to secure that site for the School District,” so that local students would not lose the opportunity of having two new schools.

At the end of July, after hearing presentations and comments from the Sammamish Heritage Society and Churchome officials, the Issaquah Landmarks Commission voted unanimously to name the entire Providence Heights campus and grounds a city of Issaquah historic landmark.

The Sammamish Heritage Society successfully appealed the demolition permit in a series of hearings over the summer, resulting in a Sept. 7 decision by Hearing Examiner Ted Hunter that revoked the demolition permit and ordered the city to conduct a full SEPA review of the property.

Dave Bricklin, attorney for the Sammamish Heritage Society, said that in his view, the city bypassing the landmark designation and SEPA review is equivalent to the city breaking its own laws.

“I don’t think it’s legal for them to do that and I think the agreement is vulnerable … A city cannot enter into an agreement that violates city/state law,” he said.

City of Issaquah attorney Jim Haney explained that the lawsuit concerned a constitutional matter, and neither a hearing examiner nor the Landmarks Commission has the authority to deliver a finding on constitutionality.

Churchome argued in the suit that according to its First Amendment right of freedom of religion, the city of Issaquah cannot stop it from demolishing the property to further its religious mission.

“If a church wishes to sell its property and use the proceeds … that is within its religious exercise,” Haney said.

City Administrator Bob Harrison said that according to case law, “it was abundantly clear that the city was not going to win this case.” He pointed to the 1992 case First Covenant Church of Seattle v. City of Seattle, a similar case that had ruled in favor of a church’s rights.

Councilmember Paul Winterstein said that the city’s elected officials have an obligation to constituents to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer funds, and that losing a lawsuit could have been an enormous expense for the city.

“When the City Church filed the lawsuit against the city, the point was made that the case law favored the City Church … I don’t think we had much of an option,” Winterstein said.

Winterstein added that he sympathized with those of his constituents who wanted to see the property preserved.

“That just is what it is,” he said. “I know that some are disappointed and I get it, I really do … it certainly is treasured by many.”

Deputy Council President Mary Lou Pauly could not be reached for comment.

Harrison said that cases like Providence Heights — in which hundreds of community members have rallied around the effort and written letters to the city begging the local government to preserve the campus — are “always challenging situations” in which there are “people who get emotionally invested in an outcome.”

“A lot of people are emotional about things they feel strongly about,” Issaquah Mayor Fred Butler added. “I heard those [concerns] and the City Council heard them.”

Ultimately, however, Butler said, “We’re guided by the laws of the United States and the state of Washington.”

However, Bricklin believes that a church’s rights do not give a religious organization permission to be exempt from the city’s municipal code, specifically in terms of environmental protection (IMC 18.10) and landmark designations (IMC 18.20).

“It’s illegal and improper for the city to give the City Church a pass in all this … churches are not immune to land use and environmental regulations,” Bricklin said.

And, as heritage society President Eirlys Vanderhoff pointed out, there has been some disagreement as to whether Churchome can claim that Providence Heights has been used for religious purposes. Last year, the Washington State Department of Revenue determined that the Providence Heights buildings had not been actively in use for religious purposes for some time, and ordered Plateau Campus to pay back taxes on the property.

“The owner-of-record of Providence Heights has most recently been Plateau Campus, LLC, a for-profit corporation of the state of Washington,” Vanderhoff said. “The Washington Department of Revenue reviewed the tax-exempt status of the property in 2016 and determined that the property had ceased being used by a religious organization, and Plateau Campus, LLC was required to pay back taxes on the parcels from the dates that religious use ceased.”

Auditor Ras Roberts stated in documents obtained from the Department of Revenue,“During the site visit, it was determined that most of the property had been vacant for some time … all of the rooms visible from the outside contained items strewn about the floor or in boxes to donate; and the main parking areas appeared unkempt and showed no signs of recent use.”

“The lawsuit against the city was filed in regards to the owner’s first amendment rights, but there are many questions surrounding the religious status of the LLC that holds the property that were not sufficiently explored or answered,” Mortensen said. “The significance of this campus merits a much more thorough investigation and robust defense.”

Haney said that he was not aware of the audit and could not give comment on the matter.

One portion of the Providence Heights campus is set to survive demolition, according to the demolition permit. The chapel’s 14 stained glass windows, each created in France by late, world-renowned artist Gabriel Loire especially for the Sisters of Providence, must be taken out and preserved before the wrecking ball comes in.

Loire lived in Chartres, France, a city famous for its stained glass and its cathedral, and has designed stained glass for famous places of worship around the world, such as the Salisbury Cathedral in Salisbury, England and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Germany. Because Issaquah — a very small town at the time Providence Heights was built — can be counted among these locations, supporters of saving the campus say that having such windows in the region is a great honor.

Representatives from Providence St. Joseph Health said at the appeal hearing on Aug. 8 that they would be happy to take the windows and place them in religious schools and hospitals.

However, according to some experts, there is no certainty that the windows actually can be saved. In the July 11 portion of the appeal hearing, Tyler Sprague, assistant professor of architecture at the University of Washington, said that removing the windows would bring the entire chapel crashing down. He explained that the windows are set in the structure in a way that they are actually helping to hold up the A-frame church.

Sprague described the church’s structure as being “like a folded piece of paper,” noting that it has no structural beams.

“There’s a tight integration between the structural form of the building and the space where the windows are,” Sprague said.

In the meantime, members of the heritage society are deciding where to go next. An appeal could be filed with the King County Superior Court by any group or individual, but the heritage society members said that the society’s coffers have been drained by the previous months of proceedings.

What the preservationists do know is that they are sick with grief.

Michelle Bunn of Sammamish said that days after the settlement, she was “still in shock.”

“It’s profound grief that the city of Issaquah could have capitulated in the blink of an eye,” she said. “I can’t imagine how the dedicated people that sit on the Landmarks Commission may have felt having their decision so quickly negated.”

It’s all the more devastating, Bunn added, because the city had invested money and time into holding the appeal hearings.

“They didn’t go the easy route,” she said. “They spent hours listening to all the witnesses, taking in all of that information. The city of Issaquah went through a lot of trouble to allow this landmark hearing to take place … so why all of a sudden [would they give up]?”

Churchome did not respond to multiple requests for comment.