Groundbreaking ceremony held for new Beaufort County Animal Campus
Representatives from Beaufort County Council, Beaufort County Animal Services, Hilton Head Humane Association, Glick Boehm Architecture and Nix Construction took part in a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Beaufort County Animal Campus on Wednesday morning, October 25th. The Beaufort County Animal Campus is set to be built on a six-acre site at 10 Pritcher Point Road in Okatie, (At the intersection of routes 278 and 170).
The new facility is expected to take a little more than a year to build and will include a facility for Beaufort County Animal Services to house and treat animals brought there or picked up by animal services officers and a new spay-neuter clinic and adoption center to be managed by the Hilton Head Humane Association. The $7 million project represents the largest public / private partnership in Beaufort County.
The 21,000 square foot facility will also include an Adoption Center that will feature 24 kitten spaces, 24 cat spaces and 4 puppy spaces, a spay/neuter clinic, a community dog park, a walking trail, an exercise yard and even a dog bone-shaped pond.
“We are proud of our partnership and accomplishments over the past five years,” said Beaufort County Animal Shelter Director Tallulah Trice after the ceremony.
“Our goals with this new campus include expanding our programs and services and continuing to raise awareness and community support in order to expand our life-saving programs and create a more humane county for all of our animals. Beaufort County and Hilton Head Humane’s vision is to become a model open-admission shelter, a shelter that does not turn away an animal that has no place to go, and a true resource for the people and animals of Beaufort County,” she added.
Beaufort County Council Member Jerry Stewart may have captured the sentiment of the crowd best when he quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
We (ESPB & Pet Friendly Beaufort) are certainly looking forward to the work being completed. It’s going to be a nice place for Beaufort County’s animals, and a good working environment for those who work very hard in taking good care of them.
Visit http://takeushome.org/ to learn more about the new center and please consider contributing to Beaufort County Animal Services Capital Campaign.
