Pet dogs swarm groundbreaking for new Animal Care and Control shelter

A symbolic groundbreaking in the rain is well and truly symbolic. A cubic backyard of soil is carted in from off-site and discarded in a pile underneath a large tent. A handful of difficult hat-wearing city dignitaries, consisting of the mayor, turn it over with too-clean shovels. And then it's hauled somewhere else on the building website and utilized for backfill.

That's what happened today at the future Mission District home of the Animal Care and Control shelter at Bryant and Division. The only distinction is that the construction hats today came geared up with cute little animal ears-- and the celebrations were taken in by a cavalcade of four-legged guests, a number of whom would happily go house with you.

To respond to the questions a lot of you might be considering however are too embarrassed to ask: No, no canines got on the mayor, combated, or left unfavorable turds in inopportune places. Today's groundbreaking went as prepared. Even the ugly weather condition made it possible for "raining canines and felines" puns to be made.

The Animal Care and Control shelter's new house at 1419 Bryant St. will, when finished, not look much different than it does now. Or ever did: The red brick façade structure was erected in 1894 by the Market Street Railway and has, for much of the 21st and 20th centuries, acted as a Muni upkeep center. You can't take a sledgehammer to a 19th-century façade, but you sure can gut the interior-- and that's the strategy. Animal Care and Control acquired the site in a trade with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. MTA will acquire the existing Animal Shelter, a stone's discard on 15th Street, but the operations it currently runs out of Bryant Street are being moved to Bayview. It is yet to be determined what MTA will do with the 15th Street structure.

The 15th Street shelter, Animal Control officials said today, is outmoded and past-date on seismic standards. Repairing and updating it from the within would have been burdensome. Gutting and revamping the structure at 1419 Bryant St. was a simpler operation.

When finished, seemingly in 2021, the new shelter will feature improved ventilation, improved cleaning systems, and improved noise and smell control. That's a need to: The shelter houses some 10,000 animals a year, ranging from cats and canines to rodents, lizards, birds, goats, pigs, and God knows what else.

Animal Control volunteer Chris Johnson wants you to meet Terrie, a two-year-old terrier mix. She is referred to as a "expensive prancer" and adoptable.

Animal Control workers could not assist themselves and took groundbreaking images of their own after the mayor and others had decamped. This was explained to me as "a cubic backyard" of dirt. And, while land in San Francisco is the most important in all the world, dirt is not: You can get it for $8 to $15 per cubic backyard. Yes, that's dirt inexpensive.

When finished, the new Animal Control shelter will not look so various on the outside. On the within, though, there will be changes. And lots more pets.