The city and county of Denver opened a new animal shelter in June, with construction funded by the Better Denver Bond Program. The 36,040-sq-ft, state-of-the art facility is more than twice the size of the original shelter, with space to care for more than 300 animals at a time. The site, located along the South Platte River at 1271 W. Bayaud, also houses a barn, which allows the shelter to accommodate less common domestic animals like horses, cows, pigs and chickens.

Photo courtesy of GTC

The 36,040-sq-ft, state-of-the art facility is more than twice the size of the original shelter, with space to care for more than 300 animals at a time.

Photo courtesy of GTC

The new shelter was designed by Animal Arts and built by Denvers Golden Triangle Construction.

The new shelter was designed by Animal Arts and built by Denver’s Golden Triangle Construction. It replaces one of the oldest shelters in Colorado. The original facility started out as a dog pound built in 1972, but over the years, the shelter’s services  expanded to the point that a new facility was critical to meet the needs of the area’s growing animal population.

The new Denver Municipal Animal Shelter is an eco-responsible facility, and the project team worked with city and county of Denver officials to ensure that the new shelter achieved LEED-Gold certification. Because a chemical plant once operated on the site, extra precautions had to be taken to rehabilitate the area and ensure that potential contaminants in the soil did not reach nearby stormwater reservoirs.

GTC and Animal Arts have worked on other projects together, including a remodel and addition recently completed at the Denver Dumb Friend’s League Buddy Center in Castle Rock, Colorado. They also worked together on the Longmont Humane Society project completed in 2008, which won an Award of Excellence from the American Concrete Institute, Rocky Mountain Chapter.