Ashley Chandler
News-Leader
The Board of County Commissioners approved a $3,220,000 contract at the Sept. 17 meeting for professional design services for the upcoming Animal Resource Center and Campus.
FMD Architects, Inc., doing business as Shelter Planners of America, will complete the work.
Director of Strategic Advancement and Economic Resources Brandy Carvalho said during her presentation, “We changed our way of thinking. That was a warehouse way of thinking … What we really need to look at is getting away from long-term housing and a contemporary model,” Carvalho said. “So, that’s bringing people in, getting animals out. We had to look at a very different way of designing this facility.”
County Manager Taco Pope said the county needed to think differently to avoid falling in the same “hole” as other jurisdictions. “We don’t want warehouse animals. We’re not in the long-term animal warehouse business.”
Carvalho said, “Every decision that we make is about shortening what we call the ‘length of stay’ because every day that they’re there, that costs money and time, and what we’re looking at is turnover.”
She said priorities include creating calm environments for the animals, customer-friendly design and the “highest of animal health.”
“When animals get sick, which happens, we need to have the best facility to keep them from staying sick or spreading disease,” Carvalho said. “So, that means not only higher standards to medical grade like a hospital, but that also means the facility needs to be able to isolate and manage these animals.”
“We need to move forward and cut costs where we can without sacrificing essentials.”
Carvalho said this means cutting back on redundancies and excess square footage while focusing on the things they want to “protect” like adoption flow, community spaces, vet and isolation capacity, efficient ventilation and drainage.
She also broke down where the contract funds will go: $209,300 toward pre-design, $466,900 to schematic design, $949,900 to design development, $788,900 to construction documents, $96,600 to bidding and $708,400 toward construction administration.
“It is actually less than the expected expenses based on needs assessment and nationwide standards … about 25% of this is actually post-engineering process, that’s during the construction process.”
Pope chimed in following Carvalho’s presentation to clarify the cost for this contract does not go to the building alone.
“So, it’s the entire campus, so it’s the horizontal engineering, the stormwater, the reconstruction of the DOT pond that we’re partnering with to be able to use that facility for drainage,” Pope said. “You have the entire campus, the whole site, then you have multiple buildings on that site … one of them being the main building … and then in addition to that is overseeing construction.”
Pope said a turning point in the conversations with the experts they brought in is to “stop thinking the old way,” because you’ll “fall down the same hole as others.”
“We can continue under the old model, which 100% we can do. We can fix up the old building and keep rocking. We could reconstruct the same building we have that uses the same old model and maintain the current capacity. But what you’re going to find, which is what happens in other jurisdictions that grow, they build another one and they expand it, because they keep adding warehouse space. We’re not adding warehouse space.
“We save costs and tax dollars by getting animals in and out as quickly as possible,” Pope said.
The existing structure was built in 1994, according to Carvalho’s presentation.
In 2022, the county allocated $1.25 million to fund the campus purchase and preliminary design. The county contracted with Animal Arts for a Needs Assessment, which was completed in 2023. The county purchased a property on State Road 200 for the campus in 2024, and then regrouped to establish a “funding strategy” for the new facility this year.
Design work begins this year. The county plans to begin construction in 2027 with a completion goal of 2028-29.