Work on the new Quincy Animal Shelter ran into a problem. What it will cost taxpayers

QUINCY – Almost seven years since Mayor Thomas Koch first proposed a new animal shelter, the building has begun to rise on a hillside off Quarry Street next to the Avalon apartment complex. Detection of asbestos on the site delayed construction and will cost the city $6 million in additional expenses associated with the cleanup.

Building Commissioner Paul Hines updated city councilors on the project at an April 8 Finance Committee meeting. The $6 million makes up the lion's share of Koch's $20 million capital improvement plan, which calls for infrastructure investments across multiple city departments.

Hines said that city planners were aware that the site had been used as a dumping ground by the Duane Wrecking Corp. from the 1950s through the early 1970s. In July, he told The Patriot Ledger that prior to groundbreaking, the area had been capped and topped with three feet of clean earth and random sampling for contaminants came back negative.

"They missed it," Hines said at the time. "We found it the hard way."

Once asbestos was detected, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection immediately shut down the site out of health concerns for workers and neighboring residents. The state agency later approved Quincy's plan to relocate soil containing asbestos to a corner of the lot already known to be contaminated and recap it, Hines said.

"That effort took, almost to the day, one full year," he said on April 8.

Now the project is back on target, but cleaning the site and satisfying Mass DEP has come with significant costs. In addition to the cleanup, the price of needed materials increased during the yearlong delay, while the city paid more to store other materials it had already purchased.

Labor costs also increased, as mandated prevailing wage rates ticked upwards with the turning of the calendar year, Hines said.

What is the total cost of the new animal shelter? A look back

In 2017, Koch requested $7.1 million from City Council for a 21,000-square-foot animal shelter at 99 Quarry St. At the time, councilors acknowledged the need to replace the cramped and deteriorating shelter, then operating on Broad Street, but balked at the lack of designs to justify the figure.

An amendment cut the $7.1 million in half, leaving about $3.5 million for architect fees with the understanding that city would return to the council with complete plans and another funding request.

However, city officials did not return to city council with updated plans until June 2022. Over that period, construction costs increased dramatically. The new plans called for a smaller shelter at the increased cost of $15 million, which the council approved.

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"It took you six years to come back, and it has shrunk in size and grown in cost by triple," said former Councilor-at-large Anne Mahoney in 2022.

In the same year, the old Broad Street shelter was demolished to make way for the new public safety headquarters. A temporary shelter was set up by retrofitting a former naval garage behind the Kennedy Center on East Squantum Street for about $1.5 million. The shelter continues to operate out of this interim location today.

That fall, Quincy put the new shelter out to bid, and the contract of roughly $16.8 million was awarded G & R Construction, of Hanover.

All told, the new shelter will cost $27.82 million if City Council approves the spending package. It would house several holding areas for dogs and cats, four outdoor exercise areas and a green roof. A nearby dog park was opened by the city in July 2020.

What will it cost the average tax payer?

In its summary of Quincy's 2024 capital improvement plan, the Department of Municipal Finance outlined the impact of the entire $20 million bond, of which the shelter makes up the largest part at 30 percent.

The report says that over 21 years, the average single-family homeowner will pay $706.32. The annual cost peaks between 2025 and 2034 at $50.12.

Expenses associated with detection of asbestos and subsequent clean up would accordingly cost the average single-family homeowner $211.90 over 21 years.

The finance committee approved the request unanimously, sending it to the full council for a vote at a later date.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: After asbestos cleanup, millions more needed for Quincy Animal Shelter