Borough breaks ground on $5.23M animal shelter

MAT-SU — Nobody was left out at the refreshment table Tuesday as the Mat-Su Animal Care and Regulation Shelter broke ground on a multimillion-dollar expansion of its facility.

Even the dogs had cake — an Alpo cake, but a cake nonetheless.

As dignitaries tossed dirt, a backhoe tore down trees across the parking lot from the current shelter’s main entrance, indicating the general direction in which the shelter will expand.

The expansion, which will add 13,858 square feet to the 7,650-square-foot shelter, began officially Tuesday, but it’s been a long time coming. The Mat-Su Borough Assembly started the ball rolling last year when it voted to issue a bond to get the shelter built. The contract was awarded in early April this year.

In 2005, voters shot down a proposal to build the new shelter. Dave Allison, chief of the Mat-Su Borough’s Animal Care and Regulation division, said voters also shot down almost every other project on the ballot that year. He also said that doesn’t mean the shelter doesn’t need the space.

Allison said the shelter has twice had to euthanize all its dogs and twice all its cats. Disease outbreaks in the current facility necessitate that extreme action because staff can’t separate sick animals from healthy, and if disease sets in, it spreads quickly.

Allison said his hope is that with the modular design of the new facility, staff won’t have to be constantly biting their nails over fears of canine parvovirus and other animal diseases spreading throughout the facility.

“At the most it would be 11 dogs versus the entire kennel,” he said, adding the new facility will also be attractive. “You’ve got to realize that this shelter was built in the mid-’80s when the concept was to warehouse animals before you kill them.”

Things have changed, and so should the shelter, Allison said.

Early May gave an indication of how cramped the shelter is when Allison slashed adoption fees in an attempt to make room for 25 malnourished sled dogs seized from an area musher. Some dogs had to stay outside in temporary kennels. Those kennels were gone Tuesday. Allison said he plans to lend them to construction crews to use as fencing on the project.

Also gone was the horse barn, which Allison said he sent to the Point MacKenzie Correctional Facility for its equine program. Tuesday, one skinny white horse stood in a temporary pen near where the backhoe did its work.

Todd Nugent with Howdie Inc., the contractor awarded the $5.23 million expansion project, said construction will likely proceed through the summer and into the winter. The plan is to pound together the building’s shell first so crews can heat the space and complete the interior after the snow comes.

“We [will] get done sometime in February or March for construction and then we have to wait for paving and landscaping for spring to come,” Nugent said.

“I’ll kiss a pig if that’s the case,” Allison said, not because he doubts that timeline; rather, because he’d be elated if it’s realized.

Wednesday, he said the project is already off to a running start.

“The place doesn’t even look like it did yesterday,” Allison said.

Allison said he hopes the shelter won’t have to shrink too much during construction in order to grow. So far, Allison has had no such luck. Moving things around the office just to get out of the way of construction crews has necessitated losing a storage closet and filling the shelter’s family area.

Foot traffic into and out of the shelter will have to take a different route starting sometime next week. People visiting will enter through the side of the building opposite the current entrance. Allison said he hopes visitors won’t have problems this winter since it will be losing its arctic entry. Before that arctic entry was installed, Allison said he had to bring in space heaters to keep the place warm. Shelter staff kept their hands in gloves.

“I went out and I bought them all vests just to keep warm,” he said.

Still, Allison said he’s happy to put up with just about any inconvenience if it means the end result is a bigger, better animal shelter for a growing Mat-Su Valley.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiers-man.com or 352-2270.