Shovels were turning dirt as representatives from the City of Newcastle, Nabholz Construction, and Guernsey took part in a groundbreaking on the new animal shelter for Newcastle. The ceremony marks the beginning of construction on the $3.4 million facility which is expected to take about eight months to completion.
Mayor Karl Nail said the City began planning for a new facility about five years ago.
“It’s a big commitment to Newcastle to invest in a facility like this,” Nail said. “It’s a lot of money, however, like we’ve done with all other things, we’re taking a bit longer to do them, and build them so they’ll serve the community for a long time. We’re building things to last generationally.”
The new indoor state-of-the art shelter replaces the existing 11--pen City facility, an outdoor roof over chainlink pens. Nail said the animals have been subjected to both the hot and cold weather in their current facilities.
“The new shelter will make it a lot easier for the animal control officers to take care of the animals,” Nail said. “We will hopefully have better outcomes.”
Nail said the facility, which has 27 dog pens and 24 cat pens, will be much easier for the public to visit.
He said the building of a new shelter is a large expenditure so City staff did their due diligence looking over facilities that have been built in recent years in other metro municipalities. He added that the Newcastle facility is comparable, cost-wise, per-squarefoot to the other facilities.
“We are planning for the future and being judicious, building our facilities in a very deliberate and planned manner to make them last,” Nail said.
