OPN Architects worked with Martha Seng of Jackson Ryan Architects of Houston, Texas, to design a state-of-the-art Animal Care and Control facility for the city of Cedar Rapids.

The project comes as a result of the 2008 floods in Cedar Rapids, which displaced more than 900 city blocks of public, private, and civic structures in the fifth-worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, ranking directly behind the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Animal Control was formerly located in an abandoned Water Treatment Center in less than ideal conditions. The space was too small, poorly lit, and lacked sufficient ventilation, and access to basic resources was inconvenient at best.

The new home of Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control will be a great improvement over its former location. The space was designed to meet the client’s current needs and master-planned to be flexible to meet the city’s needs into 2022. The building — sited on three acres in the heart of Kirkwood Community College’s campus — has abundant natural daylight, and is a highly accessible and functional facility for the animals residing there, the caretakers, and the general public wishing to rescue an animal.

Professional services included a needs assessment, programming, site selection analysis, assistance in right-sizing the project, cost estimation, and community presentation. This project was designed in collaboration with Jackson Ryan Architects.