Part two of the Providence Heights appeal hearing, held Tuesday afternoon in the Issaquah City Council Chambers, began with an environmental debate.

The appeal hearing, which began July 11, challenges the demolition permit the city of Issaquah granted to Plateau Campus, LLC, a subsidiary of The City Church of Kirkland, to tear down the Providence Heights campus.

The Sammamish Heritage Society has been battling to save the former college for nuns, which was built by the Sisters of Providence in the 1960s, on account of its historic value representing women’s education.

The City Church wishes to tear down the buildings so that the property could be sold to the Issaquah School District as the site for a new high school.

On July 27, the Issaquah Landmarks Commission designated the entire campus a city of Issaquah landmark, which could affect the outcome of the appeal.

Environmental impact

Kathryn Rogers Merlino, associate professor of architecture at the University of Washington, testified that it is far more environmentally-friendly to reuse the campus than demolish it.

“We often look at buildings as something that use energy but … they also have energy embodied in them,” she said.

She said that the embodied energy in the Providence Heights campus was equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 5,000 cars being driven for one year, or of 56,637,018 miles driven by one car. It is also equivalent to 25,217,259 pounds of coal burned.

“When you dispose of those … you are wasting this energy that has been consumed,” she said.

“If you tore this building down, replaced it with a new, environmentally efficient building, it’s going to take 38 years … to break even,” she explained, citing a 2006 study done by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

She emphasized that it is a widely-held belief among preservationists that it “takes energy to construct a new building,” but “saves energy to preserve an old one.”

“This is a very adaptable building to make into a school, I think, as it was one.”

Wayne Tanaka, attorney for the city of Issaquah, then asked her if she believed the building would be fitting as a new high school.

“It was constructed with the intent of being a college,” she said, adding, “I certainly think it would be a beautifully adapted reuse into a gorgeous campus for very lucky students,” she said.

Tanaka followed up with the question of whether it would be better to add on the necessities that a school would need, such as recreational facilities, or to simply start over with a new school.

“It would be much more preferable to add on … those necessities than to tear it down,” she said.

Merlino was called to testify by the heritage society, while the following witnesses were called by the church.

Demolition risks

Jason Roosa of Tacoma’s Rhine Demolition, LLC testified that there were over 30 asbestos materials found on the campus.

“Is there anything unique in this project in terms of impact?” asked Chuck Maduell, attorney for the church.

“Not in my opinion,” Roosa answered.

“It’s a large structure demolition, a lot of concrete materials. It’s a very sequenced and controlled process,” he said.

He added that demolition would take about three months.

Maduell asked him how much demolition material would be recycled. Roosa answered 91 percent, or about 23,000 tons.

“We implement best management practices in terms of dust and water,” he assured the room. He said that there would be dust impacts, but that Rhine “perform[s] water misting to control dust hazards.”

Roosa said the only hazards of demolition would be the asbestos, which would be removed previous to demolition, and lead, which would “go to a landfill” in Roosevelt, Washington. The lead, he said, is found in paint, and would be stripped from the concrete before demolition.

“There is very little lead on the concrete shell,” he said.

In addition, Tim Quarles, director of the U.S. Air Program at SLR Consulting in Portland, Oregon, testified that the dust generated by demolishing the campus would have “no significant impact” on the air quality of the area.

According to Eirlys Vanderhoff, president of the Sammamish Heritage Society, Dave Bricklin, the society’s attorney, asked Quarles how much he was being paid by The City Church to testify. When Quarles hesitated, Hearing Examiner Ted Hunter reminded him he was under oath. Quarles responded that his hourly rate is $200.

Bricklin then asked Quarles how many hours he had put into his testimony, including research and preparation. Quarles answered that it was about 40 hours, for a total of $8,000.

Stained glass windows

Karen Weylandt, chief of planning design with Providence St. Joseph Health, spoke about the proposed preservation of the 14 stained glass windows. Much of the controversy has been centered around the Providence Heights Chapel’s unique, 30-foot windows, designed especially for the Sisters of Providence by late French artist Gabriel Loire.

Loire, who came from the stained glass capital of Chartres, France, is world-renowned for designing glass for significant religious structures around the globe, including the Salisbury Cathedral in Salisbury, England, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Germany and St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to a stipulation in the demolition permit, The City Church may not tear down the campus until the windows have been safely removed and preserved.

When asked by Plateau Campus if the Sisters of Providence were willing to take on the cost of removing and preserving the windows, Weylandt replied in the affirmative.

“We have a contractual agreement with The City Church that if Providence Heights were to be demolished, Providence [Health] will pay for removal of all the windows,” she said.

“They’re extremely important because they represent part of the history of the Sisters of Providence,” she added.

Weylandt said that Providence has on other occasions removed stained glass windows from other buildings it has sold to preserve them, which has been done successfully.

“It’s my first rodeo, but it’s not Providence’s first rodeo,” she said, referring to a former Providence hospital in Oakland, California whose windows were taken to the University of Great Falls in Montana. Additionally, stained glass windows removed from Swedish Medical Center in Seattle were sent to Everett, Great Falls and Medford, Oregon.

However, at the first day of the appeal hearing in July, Tyler Sprague, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Washington, had testified that removing the stained glass windows from the chapel would cause the entire church to fall down. The chapel, he had said, is built in an A-frame, and the windows are helping to hold it up.

At the Aug. 8 portion of the hearing, James Sykes, construction project manager for Providence St. Joseph Health, disagreed.

“The windows are set within a limited frame system. We’ve had experts out to look at the windows,” he said. “Our determination is that they can be removed.”

Sykes said that he had inspected the windows and the site himself, and did not believe that removing the windows would cause the A-frame to collapse.

“I find that very hard to believe because that would indicate that these faceted glass panels are actually structural … It would be nearly impossible for those panels to be structural in nature and actually hold up the frame,” he said.

Bricklin asked Sykes if he had any experience in building or designing churches. Sykes said that he did not.

“I’m not an expert on stained glass … I’m not comfortable to give you an expert opinion on that,” he admitted.

After attorney summary briefs are submitted on Aug. 22, the hearing examiner has 10 working days to make a decision on whether or not to uphold the demolition permit.

Providence St. Joseph Health has testified that it would love to remove the windows and preserve them. However, some architectural experts believe that removing the windows would cause the A-frame church to collapse. Photo courtesy of Michael Sladek

The Issaquah School District has stated that it does not wish to have religious images on a high school campus. Photo courtesy of Michael Sladek

Supporters of saving Providence Heights maintain that the entire campus, not just the windows, is worth saving because it represents an important time in the history of women’s education and the Catholic Church. Nicole Jennings/staff photo