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SMITH COUNTY – The Smith County Commissioners Court approved a contractor Tuesday for the Animal Shelter project. Casey Slone Construction was one of six bids received. Construction will begin immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of November. The shelter upgrade will cost about $1.8 million, including architect\u2019s fees, and will be paid for by ARPA funding.<\/p>\n
The project cost came in above what was planned, partially because of the amount of work that will need to be done underground, including a new sewer system. The project will include renovating the Animal Shelter building and the building next door, which previously housed the Facility Services Department.<\/p>\n
Two outdoor green spaces will be added behind the shelter and will include fencing and shade structures, Fitzpatrick Architects Director Daniel Romo said. A 12,000-square-foot space will be ample room for dogs to be taken out for exercise or to hold events. Another, smaller 1,700-square-foot space will be added next to it and used for letting out one dog to meet potential adopters. To make room for those green spaces, an old, covered parking area and storage buildings that are no longer used will be demolished. <\/p>\n
Landscaping will be added to the green spaces, as well as the area between both buildings. A sidewalk will also be added to connect both buildings.<\/p>\n
Smith County Animal Control Supervisor Colten Parsell said he liked the plans to house the animal control officers in a separate building than the shelter. He said it would be good to have customers coming into the shelter to adopt a dog separated from people coming in for an animal control issue.<\/p>\n
The shelter building will have ventilation, circulation and exhaust improvements made to help with the odor problem the shelter faces now. Even though the dog cages are cleaned daily, the smell of all the dogs is bleeding over into the shelter\u2019s lobby area and meet-and-greet room. They also hope to enlarge that room, where a potential adopter and a dog can have their first meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am overjoyed with these drawings,\u201d Smith County Animal Shelter Coordinator Holli Jones said. \u201cI\u2019m excited for our staff, our community and our dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said they have many ideas for growing community engagement and holding events. Renovations to the shelter and added outdoor space will allow them to do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SMITH COUNTY – The Smith County Commissioners Court approved a contractor Tuesday for the Animal Shelter project. Casey Slone Construction was one of six bids received. Construction will begin immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of November. The shelter upgrade will cost about $1.8 million, including architect\u2019s fees, and will be … Continue reading County animal shelter to get upgrade<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1508591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2019\/08\/dog-e1739463952810-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 03:04:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2019\/08\/dog-e1739463952810-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1508298"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1508671,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508298\/revisions\/1508671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1508591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1508298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1508298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1508298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}