Islamic Center of Federal Way to leave Kent for new location
Published 3:52 pm Thursday, April 16, 2026
The Islamic Center of Federal Way (ICFW) is moving back to its namesake city after outgrowing the community’s current Kent location at 3304 S. 272nd St.
The community’s new home base will be in a centrally located former office park near Federal Way City Hall and the Federal Way Police Department.
The ICFW brings together a wide diversity of Muslim community members with lineages and nationalities from all over the world, including Kyrgyzstan, Fiji, Morocco, Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Iraq to name just a few.
About 700 people attend each typical Friday prayer and larger events can see up to around 3,000 people, according to the leadership there.
The new ICFW location will include a Masjid, an Islamic school, a community center and resources such as a food pantry and women’s health clinic that will be open to the public.
Their current location near Military Road South is approximately 4,100 square feet while the new location is over 10 times that at 50,000 square feet.
While they are looking forward to filling much of that space with community programs, they will inherit a tenant that is currently utilizing 8,000 square feet, and have opportunities for other tenants as well.
In January, the community came together at the Federal Way Community Center and raised $1.5 million toward the purchase of the building.
While the community could most likely have secured a loan to purchase the property, the community preferred to raise the entire $5 million from the sale of the previous property and through pooling their resources.
This decision was both for practical and spiritual reasons, board member Mohamed Ihsan told the Federal Way Mirror newspaper. Credit interest rates are high and the estimated $8,000 or more monthly payment would be a strain on their budget. Accruing or receiving interest (riba) on a loan is also strongly discouraged in Islam.
The community raised the over $1 million at the Jan. 17 luncheon with no auction, raffle or other fundraising parlor tricks and instead relied on a motivating speaker as well as the generosity of their community.
The luncheon featured Shaykah Alauddin ElBakri, an Islamic scholar, speaker and thinker who flew out to host the luncheon.
The excitement was palpable at the event as community members toured the building after the luncheon.The luncheon itself ended with an opportunity for children and youth to contribute their donations, waving twenty and hundred dollar bills toward the collection box for their chance to contribute.
ElBakri said this moment may have been the most important of the whole event.
“The children have to feel important…this budget is all about them. It’s about our youth. It’s about our children. It’s about making a home for them away from home,” ElBakri said.
Parking issues
The ICFW leadership reports that parking has been a consistent challenge for them as their community has grown. Right now they are even partnering with nearby church to borrow their parking lot and pay church staff to help direct traffic during Friday prayers.
“We feel bad as a management you know, because we don’t want people to be blocking their driveways,” said Ihsan, noting they even offer to get their own community members’ cars towed if parking in the neighborhood causes a problem.
The current location has a gravel parking lot and plenty of volunteers to guide visitors to parking places and they’ve also contracted with a local church to utilize their parking lot.
Despite this, parking overflow does sometimes spill into the surrounding neighborhood. This has also become a safety hazard for their community due to violent threats from neighbors. In a recent incident, a video shared with the Mirror shows young people walking toward ICFW with a man yelling obscenities and threatening violence with a firearm toward the minors. Ihsan told the Mirror that this type of incident happens frequently.
The new location should be an improvement on the situation, both because of the increase in parking space and also because it is not located in a residential area, he said.
Federal Way local Salim Yotol said he looks forward to the new location because it will be much easier to access.
“It would be fantastic. I mean, I won’t have to be stuck in traffic all day to go…I won’t miss Friday prayers. The mosque is right here,” said Yotol, who will now be able to get there in 4 minutes.
While ICFW is still finalizing paperwork and doesn’t have a timeline to open the new location yet.
This will not be the first time a local faith community has utilized an office building in Federal Way. Family Life Church opened the Family Life Center in 2023 in a leased office building near the Weyerhaeuser campus and now utilizes the space not only for their own activities, but also hosts local community groups. These community groups include Build 2 Lead, AYDEPI and the Black Equality Coalition to name a few.
