The Columbus Redevelopment Commission voted unanimously on Monday to recommend approving $750,000 in TIF funds toward the construction of a new Columbus Animal Care Services building.
The funding, which still needs the green light from the Columbus City Council, would include $500,000 from the Central Allocation Area — split equally in 2026 and 2027 — and $250,000 from the Midtown Allocation Area in 2026, officials said. The city council is expected to consider approving the funding on March 3.
Officials have described Columbus Animal Care Services’ current building, 2730 Arnold St., as an “overall dilapidated facility with overwhelming maintenance issues” and “unhealthy and hazardous working conditions for employees.” Some of the issues include overcrowded kennels, maxed-out electrical capacity, consistently clogged drains, faulty exhaust, as well as inadequate ventilation and moisture reduction.
The current facility is around 4,900 square feet and was built in 1987, officials said. As of this past August, 39 dogs and 48 cats were housed in the facility, with eight dogs and 88 cats in its foster program.
The proposed 21,113-square-foot facility is expected to be built in the Columbus Airpark across the street from the current facility. The new facility is expected to house up to 66 dogs and 86 cats. It is also expected to include a reception area, larger medical intake area, meet-and-greet rooms for all species, office space for employees and volunteer spaces.
“This is a very important project for the city of Columbus,” Columbus City Council member Tom Dell, who is not on the commission, said during the meeting. “Animal Care Services building … has been way neglected for quite a few number of years. So, we can’t really can’t blame it on anybody. …Now we have an opportunity with not only what you can help provide by some seed money in this, as well as what the city is willing to provide, what the community itself is raising to provide is just going to give Columbus an asset that we didn’t really want to see go away. We really want to see it enhanced. We want to see it protect our employees, protect the animals that are out there as well.”
The estimated $9.75 million project is being funded through a combinations of sources. Besides the TIF funds, the project funding includes $5 million from the city’s general fund, $1.3 million in Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) grant funding, a $1 million donation from Mark and Wendy Elwood, a $1 million community capital campaign and $250,000 in Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) funds. As of Tuesday morning, the community campaign was 78% of the way to its goal, according to the campaign’s website.
The redevelopment commission is also expected to consider recommending an estimated$450,000 in additional funding for the project in the future, officials said. The additional funding would come from the Airport Allocation Area and would be used to relocate a sewer line.
“The Airport Allocation Area is able to fund the infrastructure needs of relocating that sewer line that goes catty-cornered across the property, which is estimated at $450,000,” Director of Redevelopment Heather Pope said during the meeting. “So, (Airport Director) Brian (Payne) will be bringing that request forward at a later date. …He has got some larger plans for the airport area, and so he’s asking for some design and engineering work, and in that package of design and engineering work, a portion of it is to design and engineer the relocation of this sewer line. …Once he gets the project out to bid, and we get a well-suited bidder, then we’ll know what the true cost is to move that sewer line. But we’ve plugged in a placeholder of $450,000.”
Overall, the estimated project budget includes $8.6 million for site preparation and facility construction and $1.15 million in equipment and furniture fit-out.
In November, the Columbus Board of Works in November hired Doug Sunkel, a Cummins retiree with experience in logistics, to manage the project, The Republic reported previously. In December, city officials hired Force Design to do initial design services on the new facility ahead of it going to bid.
Site preparation and construction is expected to start in July, with the facility expected to start operations in July 2027, according to an estimated project timeline presented during the commission’s meeting on Monday.
“We just actually released the request for proposals and qualifications,” Sunkel said during the meeting. “That was just released to the vendors, the potential developers last Friday. So that’s gone out, and so the process of the bids and the reviews and things like that is underway.”
