What’s good in St. Thomas-Elgin? Work underway on long-awaited animal services shelter

We’re finally there.

With that observation from Mayor Joe Preston on Wednesday afternoon, ground was officially broken on the new animal services shelter in St. Thomas.

A new shelter has been an agenda topic at city council meetings for at least a decade and the new facility located on a former soccer pitch south of the Douglas J. Tarry Sports Complex is the right location, stressed Preston.

Preston agreed it has been a long and winding road to get to the new shelter site at Bill Martyn Parkway and Southdale Line.

A night-and-day improvement over the totally inadequate current location at the city works yard on Burwell Road.

He stressed the shelter will be shared with neighbouring municipalities.

In January of this year, Tonda Construction Limited of London submitted the lowest bid at just over $4 million. That’s one million dollars higher than the original tender bid of $3 million in March, 2023. At that time the project budget was just under $2 million.

The shelter is expected to open before the end of the year.

Preston added he and members of council are open to the possibility of naming the new animal services shelter, which raises the possibility of generating revenue from selling the naming rights.

Written by Ian McCallum