Demolition has started on the old Evanston animal shelter to make room for a new $6.3 million facility that will help ensure that the north suburb has an animal shelter in the decades to come, officials said.
“I am immensely excited,” said Vicky Pasenko, executive director with the Evanston Animal Shelter Association which operates the shelter at 2222 Oakton Street. “It’s a good thing for the city of Evanston. The current shelter was probably going to close. It couldn’t continue to function in the building it was in.“
She said the old 2,800 square foot brick shelter was build in 1973 and was originally intended to be a dog and cat “pound” — not a shelter. She also said its HVAC system was shot and it was completely inadequate to properly house cats and dogs or to provide proper adoption and animal intake services to the community.
According to Pasenko, the tight quarters prevented the animals from being able to socialize. Spacing also didn’t allow for ADA compliance.
“The cats were literally kind of in closets that were right near the dogs,” she said. “All day long the cats would hear the dogs barking … It was just not equipped for the needs of the community and the needs of the animals.”
Pasenko said the EASA got a big break in its fundraising efforts to build a new shelter in 2019 when it got $2 million from Cook County’s Animal Shelter Grant Program.
“That’s what started the ball rolling in this process,” she explained. “Without that grant, I don’t know if there would have been a project.”
In February the Evanston City Council voted to give $4.8 million toward construction of the new shelter and the EASA is also continuing to raise funds, said Lara Biggs, an engineer and capital planning specialist with the City of Evanston.
“We had very widespread support for the project from the time we started it through the latest being when we got the construction contract approved and authorized,” she said.
The new shelter is being built on the site of the old facility and is expected to open next May or June, Pasenko said. She said it will be a one story facility where dogs and cats will be kept in separate areas with private spaces where people can meet or drop off their pets. It will also have an exam room with equipment for spayed and neuter surgeries. The building will also be ADA compliant and environmentally friendly as the first facility in the city with zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions and solar panels installed on the roof.
“It is an ‘open admission shelter’ meaning we take any stray or surrender from Evanston regardless of the animals temperament,” Pasenko said.
The shelter is also no kill meaning animals are housed until they find their forever home.
Pasenko said the old shelter took in about 350 animals a year but the need for the new shelter grew in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when many people adopted cats and dogs. At one point in 2020, the shelter had just one cat and one dog on site.
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“It was kind of amazing. When you go into lockdown, you want an animal to keep you company,” she said. “Since then, the world has changed dramatically and now the animal welfare industry as a whole is seeing, especially on the dog side, an influx of dogs that people got during 2020 and 2021 and fewer people wanting to adopt.”
Brian L. Cox is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.