the 60-year-old shelter is done

and crews just broke ground on what replaces it.

Out at the corner of the Old Richardson Highway and Leasure Street in Fairbanks, workers are digging trenches and laying the foundation for a brand new borough animal shelter. They broke ground last month, and the work runs through this whole construction season.

If you've ever adopted a pet up here, you know the current shelter. The mayor says we've leaned on that same building for sixty years, and it's worn out. It's the oldest, most beat-up facility the borough runs, and it burns more energy per square foot than anything else they own.

The foundation is crumbling, the roof's falling apart, and nothing in there meets today's code. So instead of patching it one more time, the borough is starting fresh.

The price came in around twenty-three million dollars, which is a full ten million under what they first expected. That's a rare thing to hear about any public project these days.

The plan is to build the shell this season, finish the inside over the winter, and open the doors in the summer of 2028. The mayor's hope is simple: a healthier space that turns animals around faster and gets more of them adopted into good homes.