ORLANDO, Fla. – Instead of shovels, puppies with the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando officially dug to ground break the organization’s new shelter on Tuesday.
“We are very excited, we are at the final stages of our drawings, we are tweaking a few things, we are going to permit later in the summer,” said Steve Bardy, executive director of Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando.
Bardy said the 25,000-square-foot facility will be located along John Young Parkway near the Orange County Jail.
He said plans to build the new facility came before a fire ripped through the organization’s shelter off Conroy Road in September 2021.
“We are fortunate that we were just three weeks away from deciding on a builder when the fire broke out. So, we are already a year and a half into the process. We were grateful that we had already secured land. We had already gone through zoning,” Bardy explained.
The shelter is set to have medical space to care for ill or injured animals, including the largest shelter medical unit in the state.
It will also have space with air conditioning for dogs and cats.
“We know that we will return to years of having 7,000 pets adopted,” Bardy said.
The new shelter is scheduled to open in March 2025.
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