Syracuse parks staff seek $500,000 for design work on proposed city dog shelter at White Oaks Park

Syracuse City parks staff and councillors discussed plans to build a larger municipal dog shelter on the White Oaks Park campus and requested $500,000 in bonding to pay for site investigations and design work, officials said at a Parks Department meeting.

"So, currently, as you all know, we partner with a dog shelter in Jamesville. And so the goal for the city or for parks is to build a larger shelter to house more dogs because as we know, stray dogs currently is a is a huge problem in our community," said Rashida Caldwell, chair of parks, opening the discussion.

Parks architect Josh Wilcox told the group the department has preliminarily estimated construction at roughly $300 to $350 per square foot and has scaled an earlier, larger concept down. "We were looking at a 10,000 square foot building, but we've scaled that back a little bit. We don't need 80 kennels. We could start low at, like, a 40 kennel, 40 kennels to 60 or so and just keep scaling it from there," Wilcox said. He said the department is asking the council to bond $500,000 largely to pay for site investigation and design; any unused design funds would be applied to construction.

Why it matters

City staff and outside consultants said a new facility is needed in part because state regulatory changes require municipalities to have access to sheltering capacity (referenced in discussion as "Article 7" of state law). Officials said the city currently contracts with a partner shelter in Jamesville and uses an additional contracted bunkhouse; existing municipal…