St. Cloud To Build Municipal Animal Shelter In City Hall Basement

(KNSI) – The St. Cloud City Council has unanimously approved a $459,000 contract to convert part of the lower level of City Hall into a municipal animal shelter, ending years of shifting arrangements with an outside provider. The item was on the consent agenda Monday night but was pulled for discussion before the vote.

The work rebuilds the former boys locker room into animal sheltering space and includes asbestos abatement, sound attenuation panels, and HVAC and plumbing improvements. City staff say the lower level fits the use because it has a separate entrance with direct access from both the main atrium and the staff entrances.

Health Director Matt O’Brien told the council the city has been moving toward this point since 2019, when St. Cloud canceled its contract with Central Minnesota Animal Care and Control and began working with the Tri-County Humane Society. O’Brien said sheltering was not something the Humane Society had wanted to take on, and costs rose immediately and kept climbing as the number of animals increased. “Their mission is to help animals and get them reunited with their owners. What also comes with animal control and municipal animal sheltering is the difficult cases, the animal cruelty cases and the animal bites, and the upset customers that come along with that.”

The Humane Society told the city it wanted to drop some services while continuing the partnership, which set the timeline in motion. “In 2025 they discontinued offering after hours impoundments, therefore we needed a facility to house animals. We started exploring that here at City Hall.”

Its plan for 2026 was to stop handling animal bite quarantines, safekeeping cases where an owner is arrested or hospitalized, and animal cruelty seizures, or to raise costs on those services sharply. The city began housing those animals at City Hall in the second quarter. O’Brien said the current space cannot keep up, lacking the airflow, sanitation, and noise reduction required and running into capacity limits. He said the partnership continues, with strays still going to the Humane Society and unclaimed animals going to local rescues or the Humane Society for adoption.

The financial case rests on savings the city says it is already seeing. St. Cloud began providing partial sheltering services on January 1st, 2025, and estimates that cut roughly $124,000 in expenses that year. It projects about $152,000 in reduced expenditures for 2026 and ongoing annual savings of roughly $170,000 once the work is done, meaning the shelter portion pays for itself in less than three years.

The city is also exploring partnerships with neighboring communities; one area city has expressed interest, which staff estimate could bring in another $25,000 to $30,000 a year.

The total project budget is capped at $600,000 and comes out of city reserves. The Health and Inspections Division has applied for a $100,000 grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with a decision expected this fall. If it does not come through, staff say an equal amount will be cut from the project scope to stay under the ceiling.

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