Let's Build a High School in the Issaquah Highlands!
On Monday, November 10th, 2025, the Issaquah City Council will be voting on whether to allow Bellevue College to build residential homes on a 19-acre site behind Grand Ridge Elementary, just down the hill from Central Park. The location of the site is shown in the map below.
Given the overcrowding at our high schools and recent challenges passing school bonds to build a new high school near Providence Point, we believe it’s critical to ensure the Bellevue College site remains available to build a high school. Additionally, there are thousands of school-aged children and teens that live in the Issaquah Highlands who would benefit from having a high school close to where they live.
Since this site is right next to Central Park, there could be collaboration between the school district and the City of Issaquah to provide sports fields both for students and for the community.
Make your voice heard!
Please consider taking these actions to support preserving this land for a high school:
Sign up to testify: Sign up to speak at the city council meeting and share your perspective directly with council members.
Email the City Council: Send your support to citycouncil@issaquahwa.gov
It's especially important for the city council to hear from Issaquah Highlands residents!Attend the November 10th City Council Meeting: You can testify remotely from the comfort of your own home, or attend in person at Issaquah City Hall South.
Proposal Specifics
The specific proposal the city council will be voting on is whether to extend a provision of the WSDOT Development Agreement that allows Bellevue College to build housing on the site. If the city council does not extend the housing provision of the development agreement, the land will revert back to being built for “institutional use,” which includes, among other things, schools. This institutional use component of the development agreement is valid through the end of 2040.
ISD High Schools: Current Status
The Issaquah School District has run bond levies multiple times to build a new high school adjacent to Providence Point. Most recently, the bond was voted down twice in November 2024 and in February 2025. Currently, the school district has funds available to build a 700-person campus at the Providence Point site. This site was originally supposed to be a school that would hold 2,000 students.
The Providence Point site is marked with a star - quite far from Issaquah’s existing and planned population centers in the Highlands and Central Issaquah, respectively.
Given the twice-in-a-row bond failure, we think it’s unlikely that a bond will ever be able to be passed to build the rest of the high school at Providence Point. Thus, ISD needs to find new land to build high school capacity for 1,300 students. Buildable land for schools in Issaquah is incredibly constrained. This 19-acre Bellevue College site is one of the only large sites within the City of Issaquah that could be used to build a high school.
Appendix: Fiscal Responsibility
In 2011, the City of Issaquah sold this parcel to Bellevue College for $5.2 million, which was about 50% less than the market price of land at that time. At the time, there was an understanding that it was okay to sell land at below-market prices to a public agency that would use that land to provide a public service to the community.
Unfortunately, Bellevue College is now proposing ground leasing the land to a market rate developer to build market-rate housing. This is contrary to the intent of state law (RCW 39.33.010), which requires that public agencies first try to sell land to other public agencies (e.g. Issaquah School District), and then are only allowed to sell the land to an affordable housing developer. Leasing the land to a market rate developer, while technically legal, seems to be against the spirit of the law.
Additionally, according to Bellevue College’s consultant report, Bellevue College’s “primary goal for this site is to maximize revenue generation” (pg. 9 of PDF). It is not the role of Issaquah’s city government to help subsidize Bellevue College. Imagine if this deal were to be proposed today. Would it be appropriate for the city to give Bellevue College a discount of $5 million on a purchase of land (i.e. forgo $5 million in revenue to the city) so they can lease the land to a market rate housing developer to “maximize revenue generation”? If not, then it’s not appropriate to extend the development agreement to allow Bellevue College to build housing.
There are already over 1,000 more homes planned in the Issaquah Highlands. Growth is good, if we have the infrastructure to support it. Schools are essential infrastructure. We need to ensure our kids have the space they need to learn and thrive.