The Seattle Humane Society used its Tuxes & Tails gala last Saturday to announce reaching its financial goal to start its public fundraising campaign for a new shelter and veterinary teaching hospital in Bellevue.
Counting pledges made the night of the gala, SHS has raised more than $21 million to construct the new three-story, 54,000-square-foot facility at its current site west of the Eastgate Park and Ride. The nonprofit plans to begin construction around this same time next year and has already started the permitting process with the city.
“We were confident enough at the March (SHS) board meeting to go ahead with our permit application,” said David Loewe, SHS chief executive officer.
The public campaign aims to bring SHS to $25 million in funding, but Loewe said the total construction cost will likely be around $30 million. SHS has also issued a $5 million private placement bond. The nonprofit has been in a quiet fundraising phase since 2013.
Opened in the 1970s, the Bellevue shelter is tight on space, taking in more than 3,500 pets from other shelters on top of handling its own needs on the Eastside. SHS adopted out more than 7,000 pets last year, and has a goal of reaching 10,000 adoptions annually with the new facility. Dogs coming into the shelter stay 10 days on average before being adopted while cats wait about 20 days.
“It takes so much load off these smaller shelters,” Loewe said. “There’s still a lot of euthanasia in eastern Washington.”
Shelter animals do have to deal with confined space, he said, with cats staying in 24- to 30-inch “cubbies.” The new facility, which is designed to meet the latest in nationally recommended animal shelter specifications, will place cats in 6-foot-wide cubbies.
Currently, the Bellevue shelter lacks the electrical capacity to add a dishwasher and has had a number of breakdowns with its laundry facilities, that has sent volunteers to laundry mats to tackle its 60 commercial loads daily.
That lack of electrical capacity also means no X-ray machine. Loewe said the new facility will have digital and dental X-ray machines, which will be necessary for its integration of Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine into its teaching hospital. SHS currently rotates three WSU students through its facility every two weeks.
“They actually have to have a lottery system to see who fills up the slots,” Loewe said, “it’s that popular.”
The new facility is expected to be able to accommodate WSU’s desire to send classes of up to 130 students through SHS’s teaching hospital as part of its veterinary curriculum. The new facility’s teaching hospital will be across from the shelter’s vet center, with students learning by using shelter animals to perform check-ups and other services.
Contractor Abbott Construction expects building the new shelter and teaching hospital will take 12-14 months once permits are issued. Portions of the current shelter will remain operational during construction, with that activity being confined to the north side of the property on Southeast 32nd Street and business continuing on Eastgate Way Southeast, Loewe said. Noise mitigation will be used to avoid stressing animals at the shelter.
“We have to keep the pets going here, of course.”
