New animal shelter finally on the way

It’s been a long time coming, but Indianapolis city leaders hope to have a new animal shelter up and running by 2026.

The vision for a new shelter emerged two years ago, when Mayor Joe Hogsett announced intentions to build a facility at Sherman Park, a sprawling former industrial site.

The hope was to quickly replace the cramped, constantly full facility used by Indianapolis Animal Care Services on South Harding Street.

But slow-moving remediation efforts at the former industrial site and the need to remove a large concrete pad stalled the project and caused the city to switch gears.

“We had to prioritize time,” Aryn Schounce, the Hogsett administration’s senior policy advisor, told IBJ. “And so the most expedient solution was to look at another piece of real estate that we had as an option.”

In October, Hogsett announced plans to switch the location from Sherman Park, the site of a former RCA plant, to 5001 E. Raymond St.

City leaders broke ground on the project last month with the goal of opening the new shelter in 2026. Cost estimates have ranged from $35 million to $37 million. The 25-acre property will include an up to 70,000-square-foot animal care center, a dog park, a livestock barn and outdoor dog runs.

But for now, the current municipal shelter must care for nearly 460 animals at any given time in cramped quarters.

Over the years, shelter leaders and volunteers have repeatedly sounded the alarm about overcrowding and heard concerns about the management of the facility, which became a focus of the 2023 mayor’s race.

A spotlight on shelter challenges

Abbey Brands was the director of the city’s Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, the overseer of the animal shelter, less than six months before the facility became an issue in Indianapolis’ mayoral race.

Republican candidate Jefferson Shreve accused Hogsett and his administration of dragging their feet on the construction of a new shelter and neglecting animals in the city’s care. “That was fun to navigate in my first year as a director,” Brands said.

Shreve, now the Republican nominee to represent Indiana’s 6th Congressional District, pledged to donate his mayoral salary, if elected, to animal welfare organizations. After he lost, he donated $100,000 to the charities in December. That funding was used for medical care.

The Hogsett administration denied claims made by Shreve and former shelter volunteers and staff that stood alongside him. Still, it’s clear the shelter has challenges.

“We are overcrowded, we are overwhelmed, and we are just trying to kind of get out of that situation. It becomes a lot,” Kelly Diamond, administrator of policy and planning for the shelter, told IBJ. “It’s also working in a building that is so old and in an environment that is not necessarily the easiest to accomplish your goals. It definitely takes a toll on the staff.”

At a May meeting of the Animal Care Services Advisory Board, representatives of the shelter reported that it took in 317 cats and 424 dogs in April. In total, 205 animals were adopted in the same month, and 114 were euthanized.

In addition, 226 were transferred to other animal care organizations; 73 were returned to owners, and 44 community cats were neutered and returned to their communities; 28 died in care; and 16 were euthanized at the request of owners.

A new shelter won’t solve all of the long-standing issues the shelter has faced, and staff will have to continue waiting until at least 2026 for a new facility. In the meantime, Diamond said, the organization is working to refine its operations.

“There are a lot of changes that we need to make internally with regards to our policies and procedures just to get us up to the industry standard nationwide,” she told IBJ.

Last year, the shelter became part of a national shelter embed team with Best Friends Animal Society. The program provided an additional staffer intended to review and provide recommendations for the shelter. That individual returned to Best Friends earlier this year, but the shelter will implement the recommendations in tandem with conducting an organizational assessment to better understand long-term needs for growth and improvement.

“We all know that what we’ve been doing hasn’t helped us to be successful, and that we could do more,” Diamond said. She’s asking for patience and understanding while animal welfare staff work to change the situation.

Sizing up the new shelter

Overall, the new facility will double the square footage of the current shelter, which will provide more space for its hundreds of dogs and cats.

The current shelter at 2600 S. Harding St. was built in the 1990s. Shelters then were intended to house cats and dogs for just a few days to return strays to their owners. Today, the need is to provide longer-term homes for the animals while staff members seek out new owners.

Diamond said the current facility “was not built in such a way that the layout is conducive to actual long-term housing. The kennels are small. Of course, it’s an old building, but even back then, you know, the thinking was different.”

One improvement will be the addition of indoor-outdoor kennels, where dogs can be placed outside temporarily while staff or volunteers clean the indoor kennel.

Diamond said that task now usually takes two people because one person is tasked with walking the dog outside while another person cleans the indoor space. The sliding doors will make it a one-person job—an important change as the municipal shelter often faces staffing challenges. Over a dozen staff positions were open as of May.

Also, veterinarians currently see animals in a literal storage closet that functions as a medical clinic, Brands said. Blueprints for the new shelter upgrade that space to a large room.

She said the larger clinic space will also cut costs. Transporting an animal to a free or low-cost clinic to get a rabies vaccine costs $15; the on-site clinic will allow for vaccinations, for just $1.

“That’s $14 that could be going to other medical care or enrichment care or you name it,” Brands said. That will provide more leeway on the shelter’s stretched-thin budget, which is supplemented by work with other animal welfare organizations and Indy Humane.

Diamond, who started at Indianapolis Animal Care Services just a year ago after nearly two decades in the animal welfare space, said the greatest challenge at a municipal shelter versus a not-for-profit organization is the level of funding.

The city’s multibillion-dollar budget stretches across many departments that “seem to take precedence,” Diamond said. Much of the city’s budget goes to public safety and public works.

“It can be a little tough with us trying to remind everyone that we’re here and that we’re important,” Diamond said.

The shelter project is largely funded by a $20 million bond approved by the City-County Council and $7 million from Friends of Indy Animals. Key gifts to the capital campaign include a $3 million grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, a $1 million investment from the Lilly Endowment and a $1 million gift from the Indianapolis Colts.

In addition to the clinic and larger kennels, the new shelter will feature more natural light and an improved HVAC system. It will also feature a public dog park. And it will have a conference room for use by any animal rescue group in the city.

In fact, it will be more of a campus rather than a single building.

F.A. Wilhelm is the construction manager on the project and will partner with the design team to finalize the design. Designs are being crafted with Shelter Planners of America, a Texas-based consultant that has been in the business for 30 years.

Additional construction project partners include J.S. Held, krM Architects, Dominion Seven, KBSO Consulting, HEAPY, JQOL and Tikur Solutions.•

Correction: This story has been changed to correct information about the number of animals served and to clarify that cost estimates for the construction of the new animal shelter have ranged from $35 million to $37 million.