S.F.’s new animal shelter created with dogged devotion to building’s history

The west side of the 65,000-square-foot facility is reserved mainly for the agency’s 50 employees, including medical facilities for veterinarians. An enclosed garage and drop-off area for animal control vans was unpleasantly aromatic that morning — one control officer’s first call of the day had been to rescue a chubby skunk that got its head stuck in a fence.

All this had to be incorporated into a masonry shell that was vast but empty, a 44-foot-high space that in recent decades was used by Muni for whatever needs arose. Solis and her team from the Bureau of Architecture found a way to insert two floors inside, plus a third level along Alameda Street that has a vaulted skylight but also is crisscrossed by steel beams added for seismic safety that are only 7 feet above the new concrete floor.

The beams and concrete hint at another element shaping the conversion.

Early on, the city decided that this should be considered an essential civic structure — one that could survive on its own for 72 hours in case of a major earthquake or natural disaster. That’s why there’s a formidable stack of electrical generators in a freestanding structure to the left of where visitors enter the shelter off Bryant Street. Tucked out of sight on the first floor: a long dark space that could be the world’s largest walk-in closet. It looks as though it holds historic boilers. In fact, they are 13 water tanks, each with a capacity of 750 gallons.

At a more fundamental level, the shell had to be made strong enough to withstand whatever hit it. New foot-thick shear walls of concrete were added behind much of the brickwork, though architects left as much of the brickwork exposed along public corridors as they could, to retain elements of the historic feel.

That respect for the past also is why many staff offices are aligned with the wide arched windows. Even if the views are mundane — look at the U-Haul parking lot across the street! — the spatial grandeur is real.

“We tried to give a sense of the original large volumes wherever we could,” Solis said. “That big interior was so beautiful.”

Put it all together, and the hefty-sounding $76 million price tag begins to make sense. It also covers ventilation and cleaning systems to make the setting as humane as possible for the animals. There are play areas on the roof for dogs and small animals such as rabbits, but part of the original wing was carved open to allow an open-air dog run. Above it, an aged brick wall is climbed by two long gently sloping black-metal staircases; when an elevator had to be deleted from the project to hold down costs, the architects came up with a dog-friendly passage to the rooftop instead.

All this adds up to something much different than the previous shelter a few blocks away, where conditions were decrepit and space was scant. After five months settling in, agency staff can feel the impact.

“It really is life-changing,” suggested Virginia Donohue, executive director of Animal Care & Control. “Happier, healthier pets get adopted quickly.”