$6.8 Million Contract For New Animal Shelter Approved By Evanston City Council

EVANSTON, IL — The City Council awarded a $6.85 million contract with a construction firm to build a new 8,800-square-foot animal shelter in Evanston.

That cost is set to be shared between city taxpayers, a county grant and contributions from the nonprofit that runs the shelter after councilmembers voted 8-1 to approve a contract with Tinley Park-based CCC Holdings.

Cook County is providing a $2 million grant, the Evanston Animal Shelter Association has pledged $1.2 million, while the city will issue $2.175 million in general obligation bonds and shift $1.5 million from its general fund to cover the cost, according to a staff memo.

While the cost of $1,000 per square foot is considerably higher than similarly situated animal shelters, city officials attributed the extra spending to the city's environmental initiatives and the inflated cost of construction in recent months.

The shelter will be the city's first facility with zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions and has been built to be ready for the installation of solar panels, which is planned for next year, according to the memo from architect and project manager Shane Cary.

The architectural engineering firm hired by the city in 2021 reported inflation from the summer of 2021 to early 2023 has run between 15 and 30 percent, with the total project cost of the Evanston shelter rising by 27 percent, Cary said.

"Inflation within the construction industry has been extreme over the course of the past year and a half," Cary said. "There are disturbances in the supply chain for most manufactured items that have turned the efficiencies of the 'just-in-time' manufacturing process into delays and cost increases."

Ahead of Monday's Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th Ward, said he supported the project despite the cost increase. He said he hoped county officials would agree to the city's request to increase the size of the grant and that the nonprofit animal shelter foundation would increase its donations.

"It's true that our building costs more than we thought it [would], why is that? I think inflation is the answer. Nothing we can do about inflation except tighten our belts moving forward," Nieuwsma said ahead of the vote on the contract at Monday's council meeting.

"Why does our project cost more than other comparable projects? It's because of our CARP [Climate Action and Resiliency Plan] commitment. Not only are we all-electric but we're also LEED Silver," he said, referring to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design environmental certification.

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The current city-owned animal shelter at 2310 Oakton St. was built in 1973 and originally intended to temporarily house a small number of animals. The 2,800-square-foot building was not designed up to modern standards for shelters, and the number of animals was managed by killing them, according to a memo from city staff.

It lacks a fire sprinkler system, isolation areas for sick animals, and space for in-house medical procedures. The building presents challenges for potential cases of rabies infection, does not have enough capacity to house cats and dogs and is not compliant with accessibility standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Cary said. Plus, its HVAC system needs to be replaced, and doing so would require a substantial expansion anyway.

The lone vote against the contract came from 1st Ward Ald. Clare Kelly, who raised concerns about whether the project was financially responsible and whether the City Council had placed it on the agenda properly.

"Love the animal shelter, the people that worth there, everything about it, can't support an $8 million project for an animal shelter. I think a lot of it is about the scope of it," Kelly said.

"This is feeling a little bit like a Robert Crown redux, quite frankly," she said, referencing the recreational center whose construction costs increased from $30 million to more than $50 million.

In addition to approving the contract, alderpeople granted a waiver of the city's requirement that 25 percent of subcontracting be awarded to firms owned by minorities or women or based in Evanston, dubbed MWEBE.

CCC Holdings reported they only able to find subcontracts to cover 16.42 percent of the project, but representatives of the construction company provided city staff with a report showing all the businesses they had contracted, according to Cary.

The vast majority of members of the public who spoke about the project ahead of the vote at Monday's City Council meeting were in favor of the project.

And so were most 2nd Ward residents who contacted 2nd Ward Ald. Krissie Harris.

Harris said she tallied up 70 emails about the animal shelter that she received prior to Monday.

"So when I vote 'yes,' I want everybody to be clear that I've listened to everyone that reached out to me and we have numbers to prove that," Harris said.

"Is the cost high? Yes. But if we kick this down the road, as the community tends to ask us to do — kick things down the road — we come back with a higher price and then we're mad again."