Animal shelter renovations set to begin

City awards contract for long-awaited improvements to bring facility up to code.

A construction crew is excavating land at the Pflugerville Animal Shelter as a years-in-the-making renovation and expansion project slowly takes shape.

The Pflugerville City Council last month awarded a contract to Pflugerville-based Prime Construction Company Inc. to build a new intake building and improve the old facility that is not up to state health code standards.

The project has long been sought by the city. Improvements to the shelter were included in a 2015 bond election that was rejected by voters. This spring, the city received only one bid for the project, which officials rejected because it was over budget.

In the latest round of bidding, which ended Sept. 7, Prime Construction Company Inc. submitted the winning — and lowest — bid of the five at $2.04 million.

The project consists of building a 3,080-square-foot structure with kennels and creating 2,377 square feet in outdoor runs.

City officials said the intake building should be completed in 270 days and the entire project completed within a year.

The new intake building will be on the site of a former wastewater treatment plant adjacent to the current shelter.

Animal shelter director Rhonda McLendon said the new intake building will help ease overcrowding and bring the building up to state health code standards. The building will contain 24 indoor and outdoor kennels, six small dog kennels and an isolation area with eight kennels.

McLendon said state health officials are allowing the intake building to remain open as the city works toward building a new one.

The current intake building holds 15 medium to large dog kennels and six small kennels. The shelter lacks an isolation area for sick dogs, which McLendon said has stopped staff from separating sick and healthy dogs.

The shelter took in 22 dogs and 10 cats that were up for adoption at the Bastrop County Animal Shelter when it faced floodwaters after Hurricane Harvey. McLendon said the future facility will better handle similar situations.

“It’s just more space,” she said. “If there is a weather event and we have a big influx of animals, it doesn’t put us in a bind for us to be able to handle that.”

To cope with the current facilities, McLendon said the shelter has had to make changes to its adoption process.

“We’ve allowed people to start applying for animals that are in the stray hold building when they come in,” she said. “We also don’t allow owner surrender anymore because that would fill the building up really quickly.”

The animal shelter has reduced fees to reunite owners and pets more quickly and create adequate space, McLendon said.