San Antonio Pets Alive (SAPA), an animal rescue nonprofit, is raising money to build a new no-kill animal shelter off U.S. 281, with plans to break ground within the next two months, CEO Rebecca Mayberry told the San Antonio Report this week.
The 16,000-square foot, four-building facility will sit on a 10-acre property that SAPA purchased with a $1.5 million donation from Petco Love, the San Antonio-based nonprofit affiliated with Petco pet supply stores, in December.
Award-winning San Antonio architectural firm Lake Flato is doing the site analysis, design strategies and floor plans for the facility, free of charge.
“They took SAPA on as a pro-bono client to ensure that we have a beautiful, state-of-the-art shelter,” Mayberry said. She expects the project to be complete within the next year and a half.
A string of recent dog maulings and efforts to change outcomes at the city’s Animal Care Services department have brought animal control and animal welfare issues to the forefront in San Antonio in the past year and a half. The city is currently on the hunt for a new ACS director, as Shannon Sims plans to retire later this year.
SAPA’s new facility comes as the nonprofit is positioning itself to take on a bigger role in San Antonio’s animal rescue landscape.
The organization currently occupies a building of city-owned kennels on ACS’s campus, where it pulls animals that would otherwise be scheduled for euthanasia. The group rescued 3,644 animals from ACS in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a recent city audit, but Mayberry said she wasn’t sure whether their contract would be renewed to continue occupying the building on ACS’s campus.
The donation from Petco Love, which had given $3 million in grants to ACS in the past, came after the group’s leaders wrote to the City Council flagging concern about the city’s falling live release rate last April.
Petco Love had sponsored a shelter consultant to help the city turn those numbers around, but after many disagreements, ACS leaders discredited the consultant’s work as unprofessional and out-of-touch with their department’s public safety functions.
Architect Melina Phillips, an associate with Lake Flato, said many of the firm’s members are pet owners themselves — and donating the design work helps SAPA display their vision to potential donors.
Phillips designed the project for maximum efficiency, with pre-engineered buildings oriented to create a central quad space for dog play areas. The undeveloped site has mature oak trees with space for shaded walking trails and room to grow.
“It’s such a big issue here and a challenge we have in our city with all these homeless pets and so much euthanasia,” Phillips said. “So it’s really incredible to get to visit their facilities and see all that they’re doing with such limited space, and exciting to think about how their new property could take all of their current efforts to another level.”
