Jai Jinendra Everyone,
As we close 2024, it’s my privilege to provide an update on the design for JSS CommunityCenter (JCC).
We have completed most of the requirements to file for land permit and are ontrack to apply for Land Permit in early February 2025. We expect to receive the landpermit in early Q2 2025.
The JCC design will be carried out in three phases:
a) Phase 1: Land Permit
b) Phase 2: Building Permit
c) Phase 3: Construction (and final inspection)
We have been working on the required documentation for applying for the land permit sinceearly Q1 2024. In the process, we have hired 4 contractors (Architect, Civil Engineer, TrafficStudy Inspector, Landscape Architect). We had many discussions with the city in reviewing earlydesigns and are confident of getting the designs approved in early 2025. In this update we willcover two major deliverables of Land Permit- Schematic Site Plan and Conceptual Floor Layout.
Schematic Site Plan
The JCC site is located in Duvall downtown (26425 NE Virginia St), next to the Duvall Market.It’s within 20 minutes from all major Jain residences (Bothell, Redmond, Sammamish). The JCCsite has a total area of 25,132 square feets. In the proposed plan, we will have 35 onsite parkingspots (including 5-7 covered parking), 10 offsite parallel parking spots adjacent to our site, and over 100 public parking spots within a few blocks of the site. The JCC site will have a building(dark grey rectangular space in the schematic) over three stories with a total proposed coveredarea of 17,000 square feets. The section marked in a dashed red box (in the center) is reservedfor idols. The section marked in dashed red (on the right) is reserved for the kids play area.
Conceptual Floor Layout
Hundreds of you reached out via four town-halls since Paryushan / Daslakshan with yoursuggestions to make our temple more inclusive. Thank you so much!We have incorporated over two dozen suggestions to ensure JCC meets the needs of everyone.Some of the prominent updates are: shifted the direction of idols to North, idols will be visiblefrom the entrance, kitchen/trash walls will be away from idol platform, designated space forUpashray, multiple shuddhi rooms with only showers, separate dev-dravya room for each sect,provision for mother’s room, provision for rainwater harvesting for abhishek, temple floor to nothave Men’s / Women’s room, and designated play area for kids.
The JCC team consciously slowed down on permitting process to iterate on design and aligneveryone. We are pleased to inform you that the current design has received anoverwhelmingly positive response from everyone. The temple building will have three floors:
Main Floor:
Our main floor will be around 7,000 square feet with a street entrance from the East (top right).This floor is expected to be 15 feet high. The idol platform (dark green on the South side) will be1,100 square feet. There will be two Garbha-Graha (ignore 4 small boxes inside garbha-graha)one for each sect (Digamber and Shwetambar) in the center. Garbha-graha (green-box) willhave only Tirthankar murtis. 24 Tirthankar murtis (24si) will be established outside the idolplatform in the pradakshina area (dark yellow). Devi/devta and other deities (such as GautamSwami) will be established on the walls either in the pradikshna space or on east/west walls.The pooja area will be a large 4,300 square feet hall and the north facing idols will be visiblefrom every spot in this hall. Two 60 square feet dev-dravya rooms are provisioned below thestairs on the west side to optimally utilize space. This floor will also have a storage room forchairs, mike system, office (part of the coat room), and a place to wash hands and keep shoesin the lobby. The elevator will open on the lobby side.
Top Floor:
Our top floor will be around 7,000 sqft with 9-10 feet height. We will have two stairs on the southand east side. The dark green area on the south is reserved for temple Shikars and will beinaccessible to the public. Depending on the detailed design in the next phase, we may be ableto use the portion of this space for a big looby or additional rooms. The Upashray (Orange coloron East Side) will be a large 1,500 square feet modular room. This room will also double up asPathshala room on a need basis. There will be 5 showers on the West Side (Green box) alongwith the washer/dryer set up. The Shuddhi room has been placed right next to the stairs to allow Pujaris to walk down for Abhishek unobstructively. The 4 rooms on the west side (LibraryPathshala, Office, Storage, Priest/Mother) will be modular and will be finalized during thebuilding permit phase. We also plan to make a Priest Room in the form of a Studio to allow avisiting scholar dignitary to stay in the temple. Restrooms on the Northside meet zoning code.
Bottom Floor:
The bottom floor will be a 3,000 sqft area with an entry from covered parking on the West Side.We envision a commercial grade 700+ sqft kitchen and a 1,600 sqft dining area. The dark greenbox on the south side will be cordoned off for pillars from the idol platform. We envision buildingthe bottom floor completely independent so that it can be used as a community place by Sangh.
Garbha-Graha Design
Few of us have started to draft Garbha-Graha and Shikar. We are super early in our thoughtprocess. This design will take 3-7 months to complete including consultation with Indianarchitects (Sompura), Acharya bhagwan across sects, and Vidhikaraks. We absolutely needmore hands and ideas to design our dream derasar. If you are excited to contribute, pleasecontact the design team or send a note at jainsocietyofseattle@gmail.com.
The JCC Design Team asks for forgiveness if we hurt anyone’s feelings in the process ofincorporating diverse views and iterating on solutions that meet the needs of thecommunity.
Acknowledgements (JCC Design Team)
Mahipal Ganeshmal, Nagarjun Jain, Nilesh Jain, Nilesh Parson, Prasham Ajmera, Rahul Jain (Vancouver), Sanket Sukumar Karve, Saumil Shah, Suniti Bhandari (NYC Architect), Vaibhav Jain
For any questions, please reach out to the JCC team or JSS Board Members.
Jai Jinendra,
Manish Jain
JCC Chair
(on behalf of JCC Committee & JSS Board)
Please note: This update only includes Design workstream. There are two more work streams that the team is running with Civil Engineer and TrafficStudy. Traffic study is complete. Civil Engineering work is 90% complete and the remaining work includes syncing with Architects (landscape architect,US architect for site / building plan, and Indian architect for aesthetic). As part of our feasibility study, we had already completed work in three morework streams of Wetland Study, Environmental Study, and GeoTech Study.