Lewis County Decides on New Location for Animal Shelter

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Lewis County officials have announced they are finalizing the purchase of the Washington State Employees Credit Union building located at 2015 Northeast Kresky Ave. in Chehalis to be the new site for the Lewis County Animal Shelter.

The county will pay $960,000 for the property.

The site was originally released as the intended location for a new night-by-night homeless shelter that the county is establishing, but that will instead be placed in the building currently occupied by Lewis County Public Works.

“The night-by-night shelter has traded up to the bigger space at 2025 Kresky, the building next door,” said Eric Eisenburg, who works on special projects for the county. “This will allow a greater chance for services to be co-located on site, which can help residents step up into more permanent housing and, hopefully, better lives. The goal is to start operations (for the night-by-night shelter) in the summer of 2023.”

Currently, the Lewis County Animal Shelter is located at 560 Centralia Alpha Road. Officials have been searching for a new location as the current site often runs out of kennels to keep stray animals in. The shelter only has 16 kennels currently.



Renovations will be required at the new location, though, and Lewis County Chief of Internal Services Steve Wohld stated that the renovation effort will cost anywhere from $3 million to $4 million.

Despite the need for renovations, Wohld added the county is saving money in the long run.

“Savings of an estimated $3-5 million will be obtained from the benefits provided by the existing building and infrastructure,” Wohld said in a press release.

Wohld said money for renovations will be raised via fundraising and that Lewis County officials will reach out to the community once the fundraising campaign begins.