An Orland Park veterinary clinic is responding to consumer demands for more pooch pampering by planning to add a swimming pool.
Dr. John Coyne said Tuesday the 16-by-22 foot pool proposed at the Midwest Animal Hospital would gradually slope from deck-level to a three-and-a-half-foot depth.
“The little guys can be in the shallow part and retrievers in the deep end,” Coyne said after Tuesday’s village plan commission meeting. “We may even do some training. We’ll be able to give the dogs a little exercise in inclement weather. It will be helpful in a variety of ways.”
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The pool would be part of a proposed 5,111-square-foot addition to Coyne’s facility at Wolf Road and 184th Place that plan commissioners reviewed.
Village Senior Planner Jane Turley told the advisory panel Coyne’s “very successful” Orland Park operation requires additional space.
Coyne’s construction manager Jason Sanderson told Plan Commissioner Nick Parisi during the meeting that consumers expect more dog daycare amenities at small-animal care facilities.
“The whole industry’s changing,” said Sanderson, president of Burr Ridge-based RWE Management Company. “They want their dogs to run around and play.”
On a separate issue, Sanderson told the commission Coyne had complied with a village requirement to rehabilitate a previously non-functioning detention pond serving Midwest Animal Hospital and neighboring properties.
“We do not own the pond,” Sanderson said. “We had to get permission of the current property owner to come on his property and clean up the pond.”
Noting the veterinarian bore full financial responsibility for the $50,000 project, Sanderson asked the advisory panel to consider eliminating a condition that Coyne contribute $25,000 toward construction of the left-turn lane in place at the intersection in its recommendation.
But Turley argued the issue is a matter for the village board, which established it as a condition for this proposed addition. The commissioners, with Paul Aubin as acting chairman, included the condition in their endorsement. Tuesday’s plan commission action clears the way for consideration by the village board’s development services, engineering and planning committee — the second step in the three-step process that ends with action by the full village board.
Coyne constructed Midwest Animal Hospital in 2004 as an 11,280-square-foot facility on nearly three acres, adding 2,878 square feet in 2007. In 2014, he expanded by another 554 square feet and annexed an adjacent 1.35-acre vacant lot.
Coyne estimates Midwest Animal Hospital serves 15,000-16,000 cats and dogs annually in approximately 70,000 visits for veterinary services, boarding and daycare.
The facility is the oldest of Coyne’s practices and would be the only one with a pool until his ninth facility opens in Crown Point in February. Coyne also has practices in Chicago, Countryside, Frankfort, Moline and Yorkville, as well as Indiana locations in St. John and Portage. He previously had a practice in University Park.
Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.