August 10, 2024. The final design changes have been submitted to the engineer. The estimated timeframe to receive those back is mid-September. If everything is good, we will get renderings made to display in our Thrift Store and the plans will be sent out to contractors to bid on the build.
July 1, 2024. We are excited to announce that the plans for a new shelter have been moving forward. Over the last several months, we have been working with The Harris Solutions, civil engineers, to design a new shelter. We’ve also started taking steps on our current property, 1600 Bay Avenue, in preparation for demolishing the old shelter and getting the property ready for a new build. This includes site surveys, working with the utility companies, filing paperwork with the city, etc.
Designs are almost finalized and then we will move forward with bidding out the project which will provide an overall cost for the new building. Once we have the costs, we will move into the fundraising stage (capital), which will include local fundraising efforts, and applying for local and national grants. During this stage, the build will progress as monies become available. We will update the public during this time on our website with the progress of this project. We were fortunate to receive a bequeath (2022) that helped to get the current property debt-free and provide funding for these initial steps.
The shelter closed in 2020. Some factors pre-dated Hurricane Michael, but the hurricane is what exacerbated the situation. Even though the shelter suffered damage during the hurricane, we were able to keep it going for some time after, but coupled with the fact that the shelter was becoming uninhabitable, steadily decreasing donations, and the loss of the thrift store, we were forced to decide to close and re-group so the organization could come back stronger. Just before this (2019), we had secured a new location to rebuild the Thrift Store and funding to do so, so we chose to focus on building the organization back from the ground up, so to speak, in a way that can help support the shelter once we had the funding to reopen. (We lost the store in the hurricane, the building was destroyed.) This has taken some time to re-establish a new store and get it to the point where it needs to be. Any proceeds that the store makes are set aside for shelter operations once it reopens.
We are all very excited about getting back to helping the animals in our community and look forward to the future of the Humane Society. As more details of the project become available, we will continue to update the public. We truly appreciate all the love and support that we have received over the years. Continue to check back here for future updates!