Dear JDS Community,
We are thrilled to share that the land use permit application for the new building at Barnabie Point has been submitted to the City of Mercer Island. This kicks off the city’s review following many hours of work from the combined JDS/HNT team as well as the architect and other professionals. As part of this application, much work was completed on the facade of the structure and surrounding area. We also conducted traffic studies, environmental surveys, and security reviews. Below, you can see the first proposed renderings of the building. The existing trees and visual continuity with the existing HNT sanctuary building were important inspirations.
In addition to the land use permit application, we continue to move forward on all aspects of the project. We are proud to share that we’ve secured over half of the project cost through generously pledged contributions from families within the greater Jewish community and a significant contribution from JDS. We continue to work diligently on the detailed design for the building and additional fundraising to achieve our $36 million goal.
The project is on track to meet all timeline milestones, including completion in July 2026. We are thrilled with the recent developments and look forward to sharing more later this spring, with regular updates to our community throughout the project.
Keep in touch with our progress on the Barnabie Point Project page of the JDS website. Updates are also being made to the Barnabie Point page on the HNT website. Feel free to direct any questions to Meghan Kimpton, Head of School, at JDS (mkimpton@jds.org), or Sonny Putter (sonnyputter@gmail.com) and Aaron Kiviat (aaron@kiviatlaw.com) at HNT.
We look forward to sharing more exciting progress after Pesach!
With gratitude,
Meghan Kimpton, Head of School, JDS
Barnabie Point Project Committee, HNT
