New animal shelter design complete, construction tentatively set for spring
A local architect finished designs for the new animal shelter that will replace the current facility located on SW. Lower Lake Road.
Ellison-Auxier Architects designed the new 15,000-square-foot facility to be built at 3405 S. Belt Highway. It will be significantly larger than the current 8,000-square-foot building.
“We started back in April of 2024 on the initial design,” Principal Architect Jeremy Proctor said. “We went through a couple different design processes and just looked at different spaces and different options.”
The architects made changes because some areas in the building were disproportionate to others.
The new shelter will have around 50 dog kennels of various sizes, 24 cat kennels in each of the two cat adoption rooms and an office space for volunteers.
“It’s just kind of shuffling around some of those spaces,” Proctor said. “Some of it is a little budget-driven just to make sure we’re staying under budget.”
The main entrance will feature a reception area and waiting room.
Visitors in the waiting room will have a view of a multi-cat house inside the facility, as opposed to the current multi-cat structure located outside the existing shelter.
There will be two separate dog-acquainting rooms and two cat-acquainting rooms on opposing sides of the reception area.
“There’s a lot of separation between the dogs and the cats,” he said. “It is locked space, so you would have to have a staff member that would allow them to get into both (acquainting room) spaces.
Ellison-Auxier is scheduled to receive bids for construction of the new animal shelter on Feb. 6.
The bids will then be taken to the City Council and members will decide which contractor will build the new facility.
City and animal shelter staff stayed in touch with the architects throughout the design process.
“I think they're just excited with the next step of moving from where they're at now to the new facility and just kind of seeing the process as they move along from the different stages,” Proctor said.
News-Press NOW previously reported that the city could begin construction in the spring.
“I think they anticipate construction to start right away,” Proctor said.
