Mercy High School gym, pool plans moving forward again

The school and its students have pushed back, however, saying that Mercy’s new gym should not be subject to more stringent regulations than nearby coed and boys’ schools. Finally having a gym and pool facility will have a hugely validating impact on girls’ sports, Isis Ordaz, Mercy Student Body president and volleyball player, said.

“I personally know the difficulty that comes with having to utilize our brother school’s gym as our home court,” she said. “If we were Serra or a coed school in the area, our achievements would be honored in a glass case and blue-and-white fabric banners. But instead, our awards are held in storage, collecting dust.”

Vice Mayor Michael Brownrigg requested the review on several Planning Commission decisions about the gym project — which is slated to begin construction this spring and conclude summer 2026 — in a personal capacity and recused himself from the vote.

He, alongside other residents, requested that the City Council revisit several elements of the project’s development agreement, including instituting prohibitions on gym rentals and additional assurances that 7% of students would take a shuttle to school to mitigate traffic concerns in the area.

“I stand here as a neighbor and a property owner,” he said. “That said, in 14 years, I have never had cause to appeal an action by a city commission. In my view, this item, by no fault of the applicant, was not handled fairly by the Planning Commission.”

A majority of the five appeals requests — like a requirement to protect a walking path on private property and an assurance guests wouldn’t park in the neighborhood — were quickly found to be handled by the school or outside the scope of the City Council. The 7% shuttle mandate wasn’t necessary because 10% of students already use the program, Head of School Natalie Brosnan said.

When it came to third-party rental permissions, the council agreed with Mercy’s position that the primary use of the gym would be the school’s own sports.

“If something is not working, I can assure you everyone will complain and we will have to revisit it,” Councilmember Donna Colson said.

Neighborhood resident Lynn Israelit said that while residents were in favor of the project itself, their requests to mitigate the increased traffic and parking concerns the gym development would bring had gone unheard. Planning commissioners had shown bias in favor of the school, Israelit said.

“Each commissioner but one prefaced their comments by mentioning sympathy for Catholic school financial need, connections to Mercy and their board, or [said they were] alumni of Catholic schools themselves,” she said. “Neighbors only asked for earlier end times and no third-party rentals in order to fully support this gym project. Neither concession was given.”

As part of its approval of the design, the Planning Commission allowed a curfew of 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday to Saturday of the gym to the chagrin of some neighbors.

Residents are happy for the school to construct the new facility, which would be built where existing and currently unused tennis courts are located on campus, but want their traffic-related worries heard, they said.

“Our concerns are not about anything other than the traffic and the noise. We fully support girls’ sports, equity, them having the gym,” neighbor Valerie Teele said. “We’ve had an ongoing issue with traffic and noise for years … we have every right to be concerned.”

Mercy would likely only rent out the gym if other schools or organizations in the community had a need for it, Brosnan said, and had no plans to turn it into a money-making scheme that would create excess traffic. While the high school hadn’t originally requested rental privileges, knowing that all other schools in the area had the capacity made it a fairness issue, she said.

“To stand here and say we are OK not being treated as all the other schools, that would be a disservice to our young women,” she said.