By SARAH THOMACK

St. Joseph Post

The St. Joseph Animal Shelter is one step closer to moving into a new building. 

The Friends of the St. Joseph Animal Shelter on Tuesday signed the loan to purchase the 5909 Corporate Drive building which will become the new animal shelter.

“This is a big deal for two reasons,” said Friends of the Shelter President Whitney Zoghby. “We’re a non-profit group, so the fact that we’re doing the fundraising for it is a really big deal and the community has come around to support us and pushed behind this effort for the animals in our community. Number two, it’s a big deal because, as anyone that has been down to the current shelter knows, it’s in pretty poor condition. The animals and the staff and the volunteers deserve better conditions down there, so a new shelter is really needed.”

Zoghby said the next step is renovation, which includes plans for more space for visitors, better housing for animals and more space for educational programming. The Friends of the Shelter are working to finalize floor plans with a local architect firm as well as an architect from Colorado that specializes in animal shelters.

“We wanted to bring that expertise in to make sure that we had everything covered from the biosecurity standpoint and, a lot of people think, animal shelter – the bigger the better – and that’s not really the case,” Zoghby said. “You don’t want to house more animals… You want to create an environment where more people come in to adopt so you don’t have to house as many animals and that the length of stay is shorter than currently. So that’s what she’s focusing on is what’s your current length of stay for animals (and) how can we create a design that improves that.”

The anticipated move in date to the new shelter is sometime in 2022. 

To donate to the new animal shelter or to learn about volunteer opportunities during the renovation process, visit the Friends of the Animal Shelter of St. Joseph on Facebook or go to petforu.com.