WILTON – For pet lovers in and around Fairfield County, the new Connecticut Humane Society Animal Resource Center will be a lot more than a nearly 14,000-square-foot-building that will provide medical care and temporary homes to adopted cats and dogs.
“This is a joyous day for Wilton and Fairfield County,” said Ellen Sharon, president of the Connecticut Human Society (CHS), during the “leash-cutting” ceremony Aug. 28. “This building is more than just bricks and mortar. It represents promises kept, years of imagining, planning and fund raising.”
In addition to CHS officials, lawmakers celebrated the opening. They included U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, state Sen. Ceci Maher, and Wilton First Selectman Toni Boucher.
Through a $15.8 million capital campaign led by Gretchen Dale, vice president of CHS, the society whose mission it is to protect pets and find homes for those without one was able to finance the construction of the new center at 863 Danbury Road in Wilton. The new facility is one of three CHS operates in Connecticut. The others are in Newington – a 30,000-square-foot center – and in Waterford.
Meanwhile, the former 1,096-square-foot Westport CHS location at 455 Post Road was sold in July to 455 Post Road Holdings LLC for $3.5 million, according to town property records. That LLC, which was formed July 7 is an agent for Coastal Luxury Homes.
“When the board realized the need for a renovation in 2015,” Dale said. “It was a bold vision to keep pets and their families together forever. Many wondered if we could raise the resources to make it happen. But because of the great generosity, we didn’t just meet it. We surpassed it. Every brick, every kennel is here because of these donors.”
CHS Executive Director James Bias gave a shout-out to Viking Construction of Bridgeport, the construction company that built the center. Other key partners in the project include Amenta Emma Architects, Redniss & Mead (civil engineer and surveyor), and Animal Arts Design Studios (specialty design).
“To Viking Construction, we are thankful,” he said. “We started with a great pile of rocks. They took great delight in blowing them up. They kept this project on track.”
Pat Moughty, senior project manager of Viking Construction, described the project and what it took to get it done in a two-year window.
“We started earth work in September 2023 and worked until rock removal in April 2024,” Moughty told the Fairfield County Business Journal during a recent tour. “The actual building construction began in April 2024. We took out over 20,000 yards of rock. Most of it was weathered rock.”
[See a video of the construction provided by Viking Construction.]
He mentioned that the animal resource center was built on property that included three homes and garages. “They were old homes situated on different pieces of the rock, from the pre 1940s,” he added.
The construction of the building itself took 16 months and the earthwork took 8 months, he said. The building materials include tile, epoxy resin floors with fiberglass doors, and a steel frame that is sheathed in Armorall – a fire-rated, fully insulated panel.
Additionally, there is med gas and med evacuation available in the building.
“They do surgical procedures here,” Moughty said. “It’s an animal hospital. It’s a veterinary clinic. It’s an adoption center. It’s not geared toward emergency medicine. The goal is to keep the pets with the people. Instead of rehoming the pet, they try to keep it with the owner.”
The Wilton animal resource center pays homage to the pets of donors through murals painted by Canton artist Mike Scott, a Ridgefield native. He completed murals of dogs and cats on the walls of the corridors and some rooms just before the Aug. 28 opening. One such painting is what he dubs the “class photo.”
“The dog mural took about two weeks [to finish],” Scott told Westfair’s Fairfield County Business Journal. “This one will only take about a week to get done. They give me the space to do the class photo.
“For the cats, they gave me photos of cats from donors. But there were only four. So, I’m using sketches of other cats that I know of. There’s one of my friend’s cat over there [pointing to a wall]. It’s just a matter of piecing something together. Since they are opening soon, I have to do 12 cats on this one.”
