Boone County took a big step towards its new animal shelter this week.
An update was provided to the fiscal court by Assistant County Administrator Matthew Webster and Shelter Director Colleen Bray.
The court was asked to approved a proposal from SMP Design at a cost of $490,500 for the final design.
Wolper Engineering is a partner in the project, too.
The new building is planned to be 18,000 square feet, a significant expansion of its current 8,000-sq. ft. facility.
There will also be a new location for the animal shelter campus, as negotiations are in the final stages to acquire a ten-acre site from CVG Airport, but the actual site has not been announced since they are technically still in negotiations.
Bray said that the new location would be easier for people to find, since the current location has an address on Idlewild Road, but is actually at the end of Maplewood Drive.
The current area for the shelter is under two acres.
“The airport is a tremendous partner for us,” Webster said. “They have always been a great partner for the county.”
Bray said that the plan is to expand all programs, improve the education center, and have better housing for all the cats and dogs, and whatever miscellaneous animals they are called upon to treat.
She said currently the shelter has twenty dogs, and thirty-two cats and kittens, and some are in foster care. It also has two sheep, who are also in foster care.
The shelter has a resident chicken, Henrietta, a salt-and-pepper hen.
“We have had some unusual animals,” Bray said, and laughed. “If you can think of it, we have had it.”
She said that the shelter has several veterinarians who partner with the shelter, and some of the spaying and neutering is done in-house, so with the new facility the spay/neuter area will be updated.
The new ten acres will also free up two acres of open space for other Boone County activities.
The old site will be repurposed by Boone County Parks.
The new building is expected to have a groundbreaking and possibly some construction in this fiscal year, assuming everything goes according to plan. Bray said there is no completion date yet.
“Our goal is to achieve modern standards in animal sheltering,” Bray said.
Webster said that this is the sixth update on the project, which has been in the works for about 5 years or more, but probably the most exciting to date. He told commissioners that the project has $2.25 million in private contributions that will match the public dollars which were raised through a capital campaign for the shelter. There was a company which came in to evaluate the current shelter in the beginning to help make the decision whether to improve on the existing shelter or start over and build new, which ended up being the inevitable conclusion.
“We are very pleased with the design they have produced, and with the functionality and operational improvements,” Webster said. “This will be built to last for the next 40 to 50 years.”
-Patricia A. Scheyer, RCN contributor