Texarkana Texas Animal Shelter not meeting city needs; talks of renovation

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - City leaders are working with an architect to make plans to renovate the building.

The building on West 4th Street serves as an animal holding facility for Texarkana, Texas, but with only eight kennels inside the facility, the building doesn’t seem to meet the needs of the community.

Mashell Daniel, spokeswoman and director of development services for Texarkana Texas, talks about how the shelter is not up to the task.

“Currently we only have eight dog kennels we generally don’t pick up cats because we don’t have a place to put them,” says Daniel.

City officials are hoping this will change soon. Plans are being made to make improvements inside and outside of the facility

“Just to get a good coat of paint on the outside it is going to make the neighborhood better, ” says Keith Roadcap, animal control officer.

City leaders say they are working with an outside architect to generate floor plans to renovate the building.

“So the plans for this facility is to make our animals safer and more comfortable by providing more room and also we will increase the size of our facility to 24 kennels for dogs and 24 kennels for cats,” Daniel says the city’s fiscal year 2023-2024 proposed budget of $450,000 allocated to make the proposed updates, and they are working with private donors for additional funding.

“We want to do the best job we can for the city so we are trying to get the best facility we can to do the job necessary for the city,” says Roadcap.

Preliminary plans for this project will be made available for review at the next meeting of the Texarkana Animal Coalition Team, on September 21st at the Texarkana Convention Center.

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