SAN ANTONIO – More than 32,000 cats and dogs were brought to Animal Care Services last year, and all of them made their way through the city’s veterinary clinic.
The 3,000-square-foot clinic handles vaccinations, sterilizations, emergency medical care, and other treatment. The facility is primarily for animals without a known owner.
Work is set to begin, however, on a $15.3 million project to renovate the clinic and build a new veterinary hospital next door, nearly five times its size.
ACS officials said this will allow them to provide better treatment and reduce euthanasia on campus.
The San Antonio City Council unanimously passed a construction contract with F.A. Nunnelly on Thursday morning without debate. Voters previously approved the money as part of the city’s 2022 bond program.
ACS Director Jon Gary said the current clinic will be used for offices and holding space, including the department’s canine parvovirus isolation ward.
The new, 14,500 square foot hospital will have more space and better equipment, including an X-ray and a laboratory testing room.
“Mostly what the new facility is gonna be able to do is allow us to provide better care for the animals that we have and provide better treatment options,” Gary said.
In the last fiscal year, which ended in September, ACS euthanized 749 cats and dogs for medical reasons and another 1,120 animals with medical or behavioral issues because of capacity.
Gary also said there is “no doubt” the new veterinary hospital will help reduce how many animals are euthanized for medical reasons.
“We’re gonna have more space to provide treatment, as well as better equipment and resources inside the hospital to provide treatment,” Gary said. “So it’s both of those things combined.”
San Antonio Pets Alive! has its own building on the ACS campus and pulls animals out of the kennels to be fostered and adopted.
Before they’re fully adopted, though, the animals have to be sterilized, which Executive Director Bob Citrullo says can slow the process down.
But with ACS’s new facility, Citrullo says, his organization would have more slots for spay and neuter surgeries.
“The faster they’re…altered, the faster we can get them into forever homes, the more we can help pull animals from here,” Citrullo said.
The project is expected to break ground in February, with construction lasting until Fall 2027.
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