Eager to replace its aging animal shelter, the Town of Westerly gave the nonprofit Stand Up for Animals a deal it couldn’t refuse.
The town is providing the nonprofit with a parcel of public land with a 99-year lease for just $1 per year, according to Stand Up for Animals. The nonprofit is constructing a new office building and kennel on the Larry Hirsch Way property. The town will have access to some kennel and office space and, in return, the town will pay for the building’s utilities and maintenance, including landscaping and snow removal, according to Stand Up for Animals’ description of the project’s terms on its Web site.
Construction began in July on the new building, which won’t have any “crisp right angles” on the interior corners and where floors meet walls, said Project Manager John Lewis, with construction manager Parker Thompson.
“We had to create a floor that could be cleaned, without any right angles where germs and diseases from animals could stay,” said Lewis, whose firm helped with project’s redesign. “That’s the main goal – trying to create a product that can really be maintained and cleaned, washed down with 140-degree water.”
Parker Thompson, a seven-year-old East Providence design-build firm, signed on to the project in 2005. Providence’s William Kite Architects Inc. designed the building and has been working with Parker Thompson on redesigns. The estimated $2 million project is expected to be finished next May.
Originally, the site chosen had been on the eastern side of the Larry Hirsch Way, off Route 91, on the shore of Chapman Pond – but because the nonprofit has budget restrictions, building on that property would have been too costly, Lewis said.
The problem wasn’t the location, however, it was the quality of the soil. The parcel formerly had been the town’s landfill, so the project would have called for Parker Thompson to use “geopiers,” which are a series of coordinated stone piles that are designed to create a firm piece of land after a parcel has been through a remediation.
“That remediation and soil stabilization … would have [exceeded] the budget by around $250,000,” Lewis said. “So we couldn’t afford to build on that site and the town had offered a parcel on the other side of the street that had a little bit of the remnants of the landfill, but it wasn’t nearly as bad.”
That parcel is smaller, but it had less “bad earth” to be replaced with stone, Lewis said. But the firm still had to remove about 500 cubic yards of soil and replace it with stone around the foundation, “so this is going to be one of the most solid buildings around,” he added. That’s good because the building will also act as a hurricane shelter for pets, he said.
Two animal control officers and two kennel workers employed by the town will work at the complex.
The building, which will be located at 33 Larry Hirsch Way, will be 7,000 square feet. Although it will be equipped with some “green” elements, many that were in the original design had to be trimmed because they were too costly, Lewis said.
“They had had a grass roof, solar panels, kalwall system across the front,” he said. “But to do all those things, the upfront cost can be pretty hefty and you get your returns down the road. … We’re going to hit the areas where we can afford to build green.”
While there will be a community room and office space, the building will primarily be for animals. There will be 24 kennels with indoor and outdoor areas and areas for stacks of cat “condos,” Lewis said. The design calls for a special 19-by-10-foot outdoor play area for cats. •
