RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond Animal Care and Control (RACC) Director Christie Chipps-Peters released the designs for the city’s new 2310 West Cary Street shelter Monday.
The facility will feature a welcoming facade in the shelter’s signature pink, an inviting front desk, a cat hangout room, and large dog kennels, according to designs funded by the RACC Foundation.
"Today feels really real because the design for the building is complete, and we are so excited to have a visual on paper of what the building will become. We're celebrating that," Chipps-Peters said.
In November 2024, Richmond City Council approved the purchase of the former art studio in the Fan District for $2 million, which Chipps-Peters calls her “dream” property.
The current shelter on Chamberlayne Avenue is about 15,000 square feet. The new property will add another 10,000 square feet of space to help find dogs and cats a forever home.
"If you're having a bad day, or you need a place to sit, or you need friends to just be. I think it's going to be a really neat thing that we've never had before. We don't have anything like that at our current facility," the director said.
The shelter will be a community space and open to the public six days a week. A unique feature is the cat room designed for guests to walk in and relax not seen in municipal shelters anywhere across the country.
The existing shelter will stay in use while the new facility will help separate the police and criminal aspect of RACC’s work with the adoption efforts.
The Chamberlayne shelter will help rehab animals and the Cary space will focus on adopting.
"On one side of the [Chamberlayne] lobby, there’s a sweet family who's adopting a kitten. Then on the other side of the lobby, like 20 feet with no barrier in between, we have someone who is very upset because we've just charged them with animal cruelty and we're not going to give them their animal back," Chipps-Peters said.
Construction plans will be marked up based on the designs over the next three months with the bidding process starting sometime over the summer.
Chipps-Peters expects the facility to open to the public by the spring of 2027.
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