By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
It appears St. Joseph will not be getting a new animal shelter, at least, not anytime soon.
Melanie Barnes with Friends of the Animal Shelter says inflation has driven up the projected cost of the project from $3-3 ½ million to nearly $6 million. Barnes says Friends doesn’t believe it can raise any more than the $2 ½ million it has raised previously to match the one million dollars set aside by the city.
“Unfortunately, after much hard work and effort of what was originally agreed upon, things have happened, costs have risen, and we’re not going to be able to meet what the city councilmen want,” Barnes tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
Barnes says Friends of the Animal Shelter have asked the city to chip in more, but the St. Joseph City Council has not been willing to increase its contribution. Friends of the Animal Shelter reached an agreement with the St. Joseph City Council in 2014, agreeing to raise $2.5 million to match $1 million set aside by the city from the Capital Improvement Program, known as CIP. It was the latest in a series of agreements between Friends and the city in an effort to build a new animal shelter.
It appeared everything was coming together to move the shelter from its aging, cramped location at 701 SW Lower Lake Road in the southend to a new facility on Corporate Drive in the Mitchell Woods Business Park in the east end of St. Joseph.
Then came COVID-19.
The pandemic didn’t just disrupt discussions, it sowed the beginnings of inflation that has ravaged many a project. For the proposed new animal shelter, inflation has nearly doubled its cost.
Barnes says the new projections estimate it will cost $4.8 million dollars to renovate the first floor of the building on Corporate Drive purchased by Friends of the Animal Shelter. Constructing office space on the second floor is estimated to add $1 million to the overall cost of the project.
Barnes says the nonprofit has already spent money preparing the site and has approximately $1.3 million left. She says efforts to get the city to increase its contribution have proven futile.
“Our shelter was built back in the 70s. It is run down. It was really meant to be a holding facility,” according to Barnes, a veterinarian. “And there has been absolutely no interest by the councilmen, no interest by the city in general to support or put funds towards anything to make it a better place.”
In an email sent to KFEQ/St. Joseph Post, St. Joseph City Manager Bryan Carter pointed out that the agreement reached between the city council and Friends of the Animal Shelter last year promised $1 million in CIP money as long as the city council approved of the new animal shelter’s design, that the city receive sufficient revenue to contribute the $1 million, which has been accomplished, and that agreement be reached to transfer ownership of the new animal shelter to the city.
“As time has passed, inflation has driven up the cost of remodeling the building that was purchased on Corporate Drive. City staff and the Friends of the Animal Shelter board have met and discussed concepts to deal with the increasing costs, but we never identified a concept that led to a design,” Carter wrote in the email.
Carter confirmed the city has no other funds budgeted for the project.
“Ultimately, the cost of construction today is dramatically different today than it was at the time the funding plan was considered in 2019,” Carter wrote in the email. “I know I and the City Council appreciate Friends of the Animal Shelter’s efforts over many years. Their efforts were a significant undertaking, but inflation ultimately undermined a lot of hard work and dedication and proved (to) make the project prohibitively challenging.”
Barnes says with the St. Joseph City Council unwilling to contribute more than the $1 million it has pledged, the project is going nowhere.
“We are trying to do something good, not just for city council and government,” Barnes says “We’re trying to do something good for the community. Our goals and visions are to have a shelter where people want to come to it.”
Barnes says it is a difficult turn of events to absorb.
“It’s a big blow,” Barnes says “I think it’s very unfortunate for our community, our donors and volunteers, our pet lovers, and just as an amenity to the population in general.”
