Mary Whitfill|The Patriot Ledger
QUINCY – After five years of promises, designsmade and abandoned and finalized plans by the city to tear down its current facility,Quincy has finally provided concrete next steps for housing its animal shelter near the dog park on Quarry Street.
Quincy city councilors asked dozens of questionsduring a recent meeting to discuss the proposal, which includes a $15 million construction plan anda $1 million buildout of a temporary space to house the shelter while the new facility is built. Some councilors said they understood the need for the facility, but that the cost was hard to justify. Others said the project was a no-brainer.
The new shelter building is proposed for 99 Quarry St., a 1.75-acre site next to the Quincy dog park.The site is largely cleared and ready for construction, which Quincy's public buildings director Paul Hines said is expected to take about 18 months and could start as soon as September.
The proposal includes several animal holding areas inside, four outdoor exercise areas and a green roof, which would be accessible by foot fromQuarry Street because the lot is on such a steep hillside.
"We nestled the building into the hill in this manner to save site development costs and take advantage of the upper-level connection to the existingdog park as a public resource," Eric Nelson, supervising architect with Rauhaus Freedenfeld & Associates, said."It also saves energy because basically two walls of the building are pushed into the ground."
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The shelter will be able to hold 30 adoptable cats and eight adoptable dogs at a time, as well as 32 cats and 11 dogs not yet ready to leave. Also included are 27 public parking spaces and 18 for staff and volunteers.
"The interior of the shelter is designed as awelcoming, warm, inclusive space," Nelsonsaid. "It is not a pound anymore. The whole idea is to provide a facility that nurtures theanimals and their relationships with people that come to adopt them."
The project is expected to cost $15 million– $13.9 million for construction and $1.1 million in fees, furniture and equipment, earth workand contingency money. The city already owns the land.
A tense history
Plans for a new shelter have been floated since 2017, but city councilors at the time balked at the $7.1 million price tag and extensive conceptual design, approved only half of the money and essentially left the project in limbo.
In the years that followed, the city finalized and fully funded a $120 million police station project that will force the demolition of the current Broad Street shelter andseveral other buildings.
The new proposed new building is about 60% smaller than the one proposed in 2017 and does not include a number of lofty ideas, like a surgical suite for shelter animals and pets owned by the public.
Adding the $15 million proposed new building to the $3.5 million approved five years agoand $1 million to retrofit a temporary space, the project costs have grown to almost $20 million between 2017 and 2022.Quincy City Councilor-at-Large Anne Mahoney slammed the administration for not coming back to the council sooner and allowing costs to rack up.
"It took you six years to come back and it has shrunk in size and grown in cost by triple," Mahoney said in a heated exchange with Hines. "Six years is costing us a lot of money. The ownership is not here with this council, the ownership is with the administration who couldn't manage this project."
Noel DiBona, city council president, said the project needed to be approved as soon as possible to avoid inflation of construction costs.
Dozens of Quincy residents attended the finance committee meeting to support the project.
"Does this mean my taxes are going to go up?" one woman yelled from the audience.
"Yes, it could," Ward 5 City Councilor Chuck Phelan said.
Councilors approved the spending at a finance committee meeting last week by a vote of 5to 1. The proposal still needs the full city council's approval.
Pleas for a new shelter
The new building on Quarry Street will serve as the animal shelter and a place for the Quincy Police Department's animal control officer and K9 unit.Hines called the project "long awaited and much needed," pointing out thatthe current animal shelterat 56 Broad St. was built as a dog pound and never meant to function as robustly as it does now.
"Our Broad Street location is not only noncompliant (with animal care regulations), but it cannot be made compliant," Kit Burke, director of the Quincy Animal Shelter, said. "The facility is outdated and in great need of repair with substandard lighting, housing and no separation between species."
The city started exploring the Quarry Street lot as a new location years ago, but progress was delayed by its complicated topography and limited access for construction.
Burke said the Quarry Street location's proximity to the dog park will encourage visitors. The multi-purpose room will provide space for emergency pet housing, dog training, vaccine and microchipping clinics and educational presentations, she said. It may also have space for a pet food pantry.
The animal shelter, which opened in 1999, does not get city, state or federal money, and instead relies on donations, fundraising and volunteer staffing. Burke pointed out that thousands of newpet-friendly apartments and condos have been built in the city over the last several years, but Quincy is "sadly lacking a proper animal care facility."
Quincy police Lt. Bob Gillan, the department's K9 unit supervisor and officer in charge of the animal control unit, said the police department would manage security of the shelter, the space could be used to train police dogs andthe shelter will provide temporary housing for police dogs when their handlers are out of town.
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"I'm in complete awe of Kit Burke and all the QAS volunteers," he said. "They've done a tremendous job and I can't say enough about them."
Longtime shelter volunteerSandraSines told the council that more than 9,000 cats and dogs have found homes via the Quincy Animal Shelterin her 23 years of volunteering. She said the shelter matches veterans with adopted animals, provides short- and long-term care for pets and "always promotes responsible pet ownership."
"The Quincy Animal Shelteris a very important part of our community. Yes, we find homes for animals, but we do so much more," she said. "We reunite pets with families and during times of financial crisis, we help families bridge the gap. We help people keep their pets, and when they can't keep them, we help then too. ... We deserve this new shelter."
In the meantime
The city is working to retrofit a former naval garage near the Kennedy Center in Squantumto serve as temporary space for the agency while the new shelter is built and the currentone is torn down to make way for a thepolice station on Broad Street. The garage is not owned by the city, but the owners gave permission for it to be used as a temporary shelter.
Old doors, door frames, bathroom partitions and fixtures, ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures, furnitureand other pieces from an under-construction learning center on Old Colony Avenue are being used in the temporary space, saving "thousands of dollars," Hines said. The city allotted $1 million for the retrofit.
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"Some might think that's somewhat wasteful on an interim facility, but it's larger than that," Hines said."Not only were the state regulations and the operation of the animal shelter a major issue, the cost implications to the public safety headquarters project of remaining in that building were significant."
Hines said it would have cost the city more than $7 million to delay the public safety building's construction by the 18 months it is expected to take to build the new animal shelter.
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Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.
