The animals of Orange County will soon move into bigger and better facilities, with a new Animal Services Center under construction on Eubanks Road.
County officials broke ground on the project last week. Despite sweltering heat, community members, county commissioners and adoptable pets showed up for the groundbreaking.
The facility will not only improve the lives of the animals it houses, but also the efficiency with which Orange County Animal Shelter, Animal Services and Animal Control staff can work, county officials say.
“It allows us for the first time to bring everybody in animal services under one roof,†said Bob Marotto, director of Orange County Animal Services. “That’s a pretty significant change for the way we work.â€
Animal Services, Animal Control and the Animal Shelter are located in different facilities in different parts of the county. While the Animal Services office is located in downtown Chapel Hill, Animal Control is housed in Hillsborough and the Animal Shelter is on the site of the future Carolina North project off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
“The fact that the operations right now are spread into three different locations makes it very difficult for them to be as efficient as they need to be,†County Manager Laura Blackmon said.
Once the new facility opens, all three animal services divisions will be able to work together more efficiently. Animal Control officers, for instance, will deliver animals to the same location as their offices and Animal Services will be able to work directly with Animal Shelter staff.
The building is also designed to be more visitor friendly.
“This facility will no doubt be a destination,†said Susan Elmore, co-chair of the Animal Services Advisory Board.
Marotto hopes the facility will bring more visitors to the shelter and in turn increase animal adoptions.
“We’re really seeking to take advantage of all the advances in the field of animal sheltering to really create a resource center that is attractive and inviting,†he said.
The new facility will feature a multipurpose room, open public lobbies, volunteer offices, “meet and greet†rooms for potential adoptions, an outdoor dog-walking area and more.
The multipurpose room will be utilized for obedience classes and socialization classes for animals, as well as possibly for lectures and other educational classes.
In addition, different animals will be housed in specific accommodations to help improve their wellness, as well as for presentation. The dogs will be housed in runs, as they are now, but the runs will be different, Marotto said.
“They’ll be in rooms that are light and bright and airy,†he added.
Cats will be housed in pet condos, which will utilize more plexiglass than stainless steel and bars. Some cats will be housed in smaller colony rooms as well, with small groups of cats living together.
Marotto said the changes are intended “to try to really present the animals in their own sort of glory.â€
The facility will also be able to house more animals, with 248 animal enclosures, compared with the old shelter’s 166. While not all of the enclosures will be animal housing — with some dedicated to isolation for sick animals or holding areas for animals involved in court cases — the new shelter will certainly be able to keep more animals under its roof.
“A very fundamental aspect of the design of this facility is animal health and the assurance of animal health,†Marotto said.
The building’s HVAC system, for instance, will vacate the air in the building regularly and replace it with outside air in order to minimize airborne diseases. In addition, the building will have an improved plumbing system that will help ensure that fluids don’t spill from one animal’s enclosure to another.
The flow of animals through the facility has also been designed to reduce the spread of disease and infection.
“We really have been fortunate to create an animal flow that makes a lot of sense in ensuring that ill animals are identified at the point of intake and isolated from the general population, as well as treated,†Marotto said.
The animal shelter has to vacate the building on Municipal Drive off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard by the end of the year because it’s located on land owned by UNC that will be used for construction of the Carolina North project.
County staff had to expedite the design and construction schedule due to the impending Carolina North construction, but Marotto said he thinks the facility will be substantially completed by the end of the year.
“We’ve certainly worked very, very diligently to meet the timetable that the university set for us,†he said.