The City Council decided to extend its moratorium on downtown development for another six months at its Nov. 16 meeting, delaying a project that lawyers and property owners say has been in front of the city since August 2014.

The project — the 135-room, five-story “Hotel Mercer” — will be a modern luxury boutique hotel planned adjacent to the apartment complex at the former site of Travelodge on Sunset Highway. That area is currently included in the moratorium boundary, though Town Center visioning work to date suggests the height limits along S.E. 27th Street, where many apartments and condos have already been built, will not change.

Dollar Development, which is run by the Cassan family and built The Mercer Luxury Apartments, shared the latest designs for a hotel with the city as part of its request to be exempt from the moratorium, as Hines was initially.

Dollar Development’s attorney John Houlihan then suggested that the moratorium boundary be changed to south of 27th Street to allow the project to proceed.

The hotel’s permit application has been ready to go since June 1, and the company wanted the project to vest under the current code. Project planners don’t know what conditions and limitations the new Town Center code will impose on the property.

“Now that the Council has extended the Moratorium to 16 months, and we expect them to extend it even further, the project is stalled and may never be able to proceed,” said Dollar Development’s Kenneth Lee.

Lee said the Hotel Mercer wouldn’t have the same impacts as Hines would have on transportation or schools.

“Relating to traffic, the impacts would be minimal compared to other uses like retail or apartments,” Lee said, noting that the property is on the northern border of the Town Center near freeway access and on Sunset Highway, which is a dead-end street.

Dollar Development has been on the Island since the late 1960s, and is “ready to invest tens of millions of dollars into the Town Center,” and “residents have indicated support for it,” Houlihan said.

Mercer Island hasn’t had a hotel since the Travelodge shut down in 2008.

The hotel will have windows offering lake and mountain views, a second-floor mezzanine and pool, and commercial space for a restaurant and bar with seating for about 100 people, including a lounge and outdoor seating area.

The price range and type of hotel has not been determined yet, though it will likely be mid-range to luxury and could be branded or unbranded, Lee said.