Humane society looks to community for support

By Jim Keyworth
Gazette Publisher

Local artist Brenda Baker’s rendering of the new Payson Humane Society facility captures its frontier exterior, designed to complement other elements of historic Main Street. The state-of-the-art facility is comprised of two buildings with an open courtyard between them.

The rendering, by local artist Brenda Baker, captures the 14,500-square-foot facility’s frontier façade, designed to complement the other components of historic Main Street. The new shelter will be built just south of Main Street behind the current shelter at 812 S. McLane Road on property recently occupied by an auto salvage yard.

Marcus Macfarlane of Amon Builders, the local building contractor selected for the project, made the bulk of the presentation Monday evening. “It’s going to be a very nice building,” Macfarlane told the 14 people in attendance…. “It’s nothing like the facility they have now.”

The new shelter was designed by Shelter Planners of America, a California based company that has designed over 700 state-of-the-art shelters across the country.

Shelter officials point out that it will accommodate the anticipated growth of the Rim Country for the next 30 years, and they emphasize that it will be an asset to Main Street and the entire Rim Country. The exterior of the new facility features a standing seam green metal roof, with the walls built of three kinds of masonry block. The front facade features posted beams with round columns and king trusses. But paramount for the planners and shelter officials was creating a facility that would be soundproof – making the new shelter virtually silent from the parking lot.