Farmers Branch is expanding its animal shelter with help from a posthumous donation from a late cat-loving resident.
The Farmers Branch City Council told staff on Tuesday to move forward with a project that would expand the Animal Adoption Center by more 1,000 square feet, increasing the shelter’s capacity for cats and kittens from 30 to 40.
The expansion will also add three holding rooms, a cat meet-and-greet room, an adoption room and a play room, according to a city presentation. This will also allow for the reallocation of six previous cat spaces to expand the capacity for dogs and puppies from 39 to 45 spaces.
Scott Webster, the city's deputy director of community services, told council members separating the cats keeps the animals and staff safer because they are less likely to get scared by a dog and become hostile.
"Staff can handle them, take them to where they need to go without concerns that they're going to get harmed by them getting scared, especially when you're dealing with strays," Webster said.
The new cat spaces will also use more natural daylight.
“The design will flood the new cat rooms with natural daylighting to all for improved circadian rhythm to animals,” according to an architecture assessment done in June. “This will assist in the overall health of the animals.”
The architecture assessment found the expansion will cost $1.3 million, but the project total could rise to $1.8 million after factoring in other costs.
Most of the expansion will be covered by a $1.5 million donation from Dorothy Ray Holly, who died in 2021 and wrote the donation into her will. The donation was tied to creating a dedicated cat area with an "open air enclosure/sunroom."
"I think it's important that we hold true to the desires of the individual who donated the money," councilmember Omar Roman told KERA News.
A brass plaque will pay tribute to Holly and her wife, Glenda Sue Moore, on the side of the building.
“A tribute to my forever cat companions over the years,” the proposed plaque will read. “In loving memory Sugar, Gregory, Jeffrey, Shannon, Tu, Opal, P.J.”
“God bless them all,” she wrote in her will, which also made donations to the animal welfare organizations Operation Kindness and the Humane Society of Dallas County. According to her obituary, Holly was a Farmers Branch resident and “enjoyed fishing, dancing, dominoes, trips to her lake house, girls night out and visiting the Farmers Branch animal shelter.”
It also states she and her wife Moore, who died in 2017, donated to a Farmers Branch adoption van and dog park.
“She loved and supported all animals, especially cats,” her obituary reads.
The expansion and renovation could help alleviate capacity constraints the Farmers Branch Adoption Center, like most shelters across North Texas and the South, faces. The shelter said in a Sept. 1 Facebook post they were full, even after cutting adoption fees for the month of August to help free up space. Webster told council the shelter is usually at or above capacity.
The city hopes to begin work on the expansion at the beginning of 2026 and finish within two years, Webster said.
Dylan Duke is KERA's Fall news intern. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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