Cedar Rapids to pick new animal shelter site Tuesday

The City Council on Tuesday is slated to pick a site from three options for a new animal control facility, and Mayor Ron Corbett wants to put it where the city has talked about rebuilding the flood-wrecked one since the 2008 flood - at Kirkwood Community College.

Council member Justin Shields, who joined Corbett at a meeting with The Gazette editorial board on Wednesday, said he backs the Kirkwood site, too.

The difference in estimated costs among the three potential sites for the facility is relatively small for a project expected to cost nearly $8 million.

Ryan Companies US Inc., the city's project manager, estimates the new facility will cost $7.54 million to build on Bell Street SW near the intersection of Highway 30 and C Street SW; $7.7 million at a Kirkwood site on 76th Avenue SW; and $7.86 million at 16th Avenue SW and Jacolyn Drive SW.

Land acquisition is estimated to cost $700,000 for the Kirkwood site; $750,000 for the Bell Street SW site; and $1 million for the 16th Avenue SW site.

Corbett said the council is only scheduled to select a site for the new animal shelter on Tuesday, and it will put off any decision on how big to build the facility.

He and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said the city and the Linn County Board of Supervisors are continuing to discuss joining forces in some way in the project.

Corbett said the facility may need to be larger than it otherwise would need to be if jurisdictions in the county in addition to the cities of Cedar Rapids and Marion house their animals there.

Pomeranz said he will be discussing with county officials two ideas: a city-managed facility that the county and others would pay to use; and a facility that the city and county and, perhaps, others manage under a joint-management structure. He noted that the city of West Des Moines, which he managed for 12 years before coming to Cedar Rapids in September, operated in a successful dispatch center in a joint-management setup with Urbandale and Clive.

Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, says the city will be asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to contribute more than it otherwise would to the project so the city can replace its flood-ruined shelter with one built to national animal-care standards.

In past months, City Council have talked favorably about the Kirkwood Community College site as a place where Kirkwood students majoring in animal-related subjects could get hands-on training.