Iowa City ready to roll on new animal shelter

The two-year-long waiting process for Iowa City to identify a new location to rebuild its flooded animal shelter is finished.

“This is what we've been waiting for to have this actual site identified and have it in city ownership to proceed with design,” said Dale Helling, interim city manager for Iowa City.

The $356,000 piece of land is located mostly south of McCollister Boulevard and borders the east side of the Iowa River and the Terry Trueblood Recreation Area.  The total plot of land is 38.5 acres.

Helling said FEMA still has to approve the site for the relocation of the animal shelter.  The new shelter will only take up a small portion of the city's new property.  The rest of it will be left as open space and park land.

FEMA will only pay to replace an animal shelter of comparable size to the facility on 111 Kirkwood Avenue that flooded in 2008; however, the city would like to build a bigger animal shelter.

“We were pretty cramped in the facility we had,” Helling said.

In order to build a larger facility, the city would be required to come up with the extra money to cover the expansion.  Helling said he is also aware of a private fundraising campaign being sponsored by the Friends of the Animal Shelter to collect funds to build a bigger shelter.

Helling said the city council will like discuss this new site, design concepts, and a construction start date for the new shelter at their July 12 work session.