The Denton City Council accepted a bid Tuesday night to begin construction on a new animal shelter.
Celina-based Schmoldt Construction was awarded the contract to build the new shelter on the city’s northside near University of North Texas Discovery Park. The firm put in a bid of a bit more than $4.2 million - less than the anticipated construction price tag of $5 million.
Police Captain Scott Fletcher says the new shelter has been in the works since about 2005 with countless community members raising donations and putting in time to make it feasible.
“The donations make up about a third of the construction cost,” said Fletcher. “It was kind of overwhelming at times to see how many people really were interested in this.”
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Also Tuesday night the city council agreed to a plan to lower adoption fees at the shelter from $120 to $60 for cats and dogs.
Fletcher says after a short study they realized Denton had some of the highest shelter adoption fees in the state and that needed to change.
For some time the Denton Animal Shelter Foundation has subsidized adoptions to help folks cover the cost, but staff wanted to see that money put to better use.
"It just made more sense for us to set that up and make better use of their money to spread it out a little further and make sure we help as many animals as we could,” said Fletcher.
Schmoldt Construction told the city they believe they can have the shelter completed by mid-April 2014 rather than the expected July 2014 date. They hope to start work in July.
