Much of our current facilities will benefit from renovation. Our plans include flipping the adoption floor to create a large, enclosed cat room with socializing spaces built in, as well as individual suites for dogs instead of kennels. This will also allow us to move small animals to a quieter area of the shelter.
We’re also overhauling the front area of the building. Our training and education room will expand to almost twice its current size, to accommodate growing demand for our programs. The lobby will become a more welcoming space for the community, and we’re creating additional office spaces to accommodate our growing team.

Bigger isn’t always better—it’s about how you use the space you have. In researching options to accommodate our growth, we found that renovating our current space to fit our needs would provide a much higher return on investment, as opposed to expanding our footprint. Additionally, our building is located on a floodplain, which would make expansion challenging and expensive.

After investigating new buildings and considering our goals and resources, we determined that relocating to new facilities wouldn’t be the most responsible use of our resources at this time. Instead, renovation will allow us to increase the quality of life for the animals in our care and expand our programs and services—without a lengthy and disruptive relocation. Plus, we love our current location!

We miss being able to welcome the community into our facility! After the renovation is complete, we’re excited to once again accept walk-ins for open viewing hours seven days a week. We plan to continue appointments for meet-and-greets and adoptions. Appointments for these services allow us to provide better counsels, make better matches, and schedule staff appropriately.

The total proposed cost for the renovation is estimated to be about $800,000. This includes all work and materials, as well as finishings. We arrived at this estimate after comparing bids from several reputable contractors—all of which were generally in the same range and inclusive of the same costs.

EBHS is seeking to cover the cost of renovations through a Capital Fundraising campaign. We will launch special fundraising efforts in 2023 to appeal to our community for help in paying for these much-needed renovations to our facilities. This includes appeals to corporate partners and community businesses. We’re also excited to announce that EBHS is the recipient of a generous beneficiary gift that has been pledged to help cover a portion of the cost of renovations!

Because we’re appealing to the community to help cover a significant portion of our renovation costs, EBHS plans to recognize our generous donors in a variety of ways. We have set up several donation tiers, with corresponding forms of recognition. Please reach out to Natalie Hoskins at natalie@ebhs.org to learn more.

Construction is scheduled to begin in early January 2023. Thanks to generous terms from our construction and renovation partner, EBHS will have the option to pay for the improvements in installments. This allows us to begin construction immediately and pay for work as it’s performed (and after).

The renovation will be completed in phases over the course of about nine months, and it’s our hope to continue operations as normally as possible during construction. Our estimated completion date is September, 2023.

The comfort, wellbeing and safety of our animals comes first, and we’ve strongly evaluated how renovations will affect the dogs, cats and small animals in our care. We have carefully planned all phases of construction to minimize any impact to our animals. That said, we will likely need to temporarily reduce the number dog transports we participate in during construction.

Each phase of construction will impact operations differently. We will temporarily suspend training and education programs at the shelter while the front area is being renovated, but plan to pivot to virtual options and off-site services during that time. Other day-to-day operations should continue with minimal disruptions. Any unexpected changes to normal operation will be assessed and communicated ahead of time.

We have chosen to contract Impact General LLC for the renovation. Impact General LLC is an Oconomowoc-based commercial construction and remodeling company with more than 80 years of combined experience. They’ve assisted us every step of the way throughout the project so far, including providing blueprints and concept renderings, providing a comprehensive bid breakdown, and offering expert insight into how to maximize our investment in renovating our facilities. We are impressed with their professionalism and communication, and eager to partner with them!

Please contact  Natalie Hoskins at natalie@ebhs.org for more information about how to make a contribution to the Capital Campaign. You can also reach them by phone at their direct lines:
• Natalie Hoskins, Executive Director: 262-754-9137