KC Pet Project to open retail adoption center

For the past 10 months I've been providing updates on KC Pet Project's progress toward taking the Kansas City, MO animal shelter to an open-admission, no kill shelter.

Over the past 10 months, we have been able to save 84% of the dogs and cats that have entered our shelter -- and have saved more than 90% since July 1.

But intake remains high, and ongoing, and with a shelter in an out-of-the-way location, we'll need to keep adoption high over the holidays.

So next Tuesday (November 13), KC Pet Project will be opening a retail adoption center at Zona Rosa shopping center. The retail adoption center will remain open throughout the holidays and is set to close January 15. This is a picture of the outside of the center (although the graphics are not yet complete, this is what it will look like).

The center will house about 25-35 dogs and cats available for adoption (and possibly any other small mammels that we get into the shelter) and will also have a variety of pet-related merchandise for sale.

For those of you not familiar with the geography of Kansas City, let me take a minute to describe. There are essentially 3 main geography dividers in the Kansas City metropolitan area: the state line, that divides Missouri from Kansas, and the Missouri River, that divides Kansas City, MO North/South.

Currently, the three largest shelters in the metro all operate South of the river, two on the Missouri side, and one in Kansas. The Zona Rosa location will give KC Pet Project a significant footprint in Kansas City, MO, North of the River. And Zona Rosa is the highest-trafficked retail shopping district North of the River -- so we should have a TON of foot-traffic in and out of the store (and hopefully a lot of adoptions to match). The location will give us a 7-day-a-week retail adoption area, that will be open 12-ish hours a day in one of the fastest-growing areas of the city.

We're very excited.

We were able to obtain the space because like many retail destinations in this economy, there are a handful of openings spaces that they were looking to fill for the holidays and they were very gracious to provide the space to us as a not-for-profit for a below-market rate.

As we continue to move toward our no-kill goal, we continue to look for opportunities to increase adoptions in order to keep up with our daily supply. This is another great opportunity for us to do so.

Like always, I will update this blog with some adoption results (and more pictures of the inside of the space) as we get the store open and begin adoptions.

Posted at 01:52 PM in Adoptions, Animal Shelters, Kansas City, MO, KC Pet Project | Permalink

Comments

I'd like to thank the fine folks at the ASPCA that awarded KCPP the Petrie grant which will cover a good portion of the costs of this project.

We have some other sponsors too but I have to confirm!

Posted by: MichelleD | November 05, 2012 at 02:16 PM

One of the pet supply stores I occasionally patronize (it's about 45 minutes away) has cats for adoption (in cooperation with a local shelter). They have a nice, if small habitat with a tunnel and stuff to climb on; and supposedly they've adopted out thousands of cats in the last 12 or more years. I think it's a great idea to have pets available adoption in a retail setting, because more people will see the critters - as long as the dogs and cats are being regularly petted and well cared for by staff and/or volunteers.

Posted by: Pat | November 05, 2012 at 03:46 PM