County plans to close Mesa animal shelter
Closure will happen once other facility is expanded
Maricopa County plans to shut down its aging Mesa animal shelter once construction is completed on an expanded west Phoenix facility, officials announced. The closure is expected no earlier than 2019. Officials said the site is over-crowded, housing as many as 100 animals over its capacity.
Maricopa County plans to shut down its aging Mesa animal shelter once construction is completed on an expanded west Phoenix facility, officials announced Tuesday.
The closure is expected no earlier than 2019.
The East Valley location, built in the 1980s, was originally used as a site to give rabies vaccinations and was never intended as a shelter. A task force formed in 2014 to improve Maricopa County Animal Care and Control declared the Mesa shelter “inadequate and substandard.”
County officials said the site near the Chicago Cubs spring-training facility at 2630 W. Rio Salado Parkway is overcrowded, housing as many as 100 more animals than its 250 capacity.
Other problems, according to the county, include:
Kennels that are too small. Too little space for medical care. A cramped play yard.
A narrow lobby. Difficulty sanitizing the facility. Weak heating and cooling equipment.
Inadequate watering and feeding systems.
Deafening noise in the kennels. “Our conclusion is that centralizing our services in one high-functioning center will be a good step for all of Maricopa County’s homeless animals and
the people who care about them,” Animal Care and Control Director Mary Martin wrote in a letter to volunteers. “There is no doubt that the people who use the East Valley facility on a regular basis will be inconvenienced . ... However, the over-all impact for animals will be positive.”
The county has not yet decided what to do with the Mesa building once it closes.
Expanding it would be too costly because the limited amount of land would require building vertically, county officials said.
The soon-to-be-renovated Phoenix shelter, 2500 S. 27th Avenue, would offer potentially as many as 1,100 kennels, as well as longer service hours, a larger play area, more room for staffers and volunteers, and a streamlined process for owners to reunite with lost cats and dogs.
Currently, the site houses 500 to 600 pets, nearly double the number of animals it was built to handle.
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors agreed to spend $1.8 million to design the larger Phoenix facility based on shelter research on animal behavior and workflow.
Construction could begin next year. The ultimate price tag so far is unknown. Greg Dunaway, a volunteer from Scottsdale, said anyone who visits the East Valley shelter sees that it is “desperately due for a renovation.”
He said dedicated volunteers who exercise, train and socialize the animals despite the tough conditions have been instrumental to ensuring their welfare.
“To lose those volunteers due to a geographic consolidation would be a shame, but Mary Martin and her team have done a phenomenal job in her short tenure as director,” Dunaway told The
Arizona Republic in an email. “I have no doubt she will continue to inspire us all once we officially close the doors at East.”
Martin, who took over Animal Control last year after it faced complaints about medical care and other issues, said the shelters have made progress.
She touted a drop in animals taken in by the county over the past few years and a better track record of returning pets to owners.
She also noted incidents of euthanasia and deaths have decreased, with 94 percent of animals leaving the shelter alive. The “live release” rate in 2015 was 79 percent.
Another focus of the expanded shelter will be greater outreach to needy areas to offer vaccinations, spaying and neutering, Martin said, as well as revamping an off-site adoption program to connect pets with communities that want them.