Unless you are in the pet care business as a hobby, the total cost of building new or renovating your current pet care center should make economic sense. It’s easy to develop a long wish-list of trendy services and beautiful finishes when you see some of the newer facilities that are being built. The question is, what is your market and can the cost of the project be paid off and still give you the return on investment you need?

The Business Plan
The best way to answer that question is to first create or re-visit your business plan. It will control not only the design, but the entire project, and should be provided to your designer to help in the project programming. It’s the best tool to aid your designer/architect to have a proper frame of reference.

If your business plan proforma says a project with all the bells and whistles is not economical, you’ll have to fight the urge to build the Taj Mahal. Perhaps totally gutting your current place and starting over with the newest services out there isn’t a good idea if it’s not supported by your business plan.

There are many total project costs in addition to the design fees and the construction costs. Costs such as site zoning applications, impact fees, furniture and fixtures, pet enclosures, interim interest, etc., are often overlooked, but need to be gathered and added to the proforma.

It’s in this process that the experienced designer needs to be able to give you accurate ballpark construction estimates based on your conceptual design programming. This will avoid the double cost of having someone design that perfect place only to find out after the construction bidding, that you can’t afford it and have to pay him all over again to redraw it.

Choosing a Designer
Experienced professional help is definitely in order. Unfortunately there aren’t many designers or architects who have the experience, knowledge and understanding of the pet care business and its very specific needs. This hurdle can sometimes lead people to take what seems to be an easier solution, which is looking around and copying someone else’s facility! This can be a huge mistake and is certainly not the path to success. Just because someone else has done it, doesn’t mean it’s a good design or economically right for your project.

Designing a modern pet care facility today is much more complicated than the kennels past. Today we have a growing variety of popular services to offer that your pet-savvy customers want. Each service has its own design and construction requirements for space, staffing, size and needs.

When choosing the designer for your project they should be knowledgeable enough to ask you all the correct questions about the business operations to design for your needs and budget. They shouldn’t be asking you questions such as, “By the way, what’s doggie daycare?”

Functionality
Industry labor costs average between 30 and 50% of the gross revenue. Your operations and procedures and how your staff will implement them are both crucial to the design and the bottom line. Very few operators run their place in exactly the same way. It’s wonderful to be so individualized and still be successful; however, it increases the need for a designer that understands what you want to do.

For example: Resort A, a dog daycare that offers some overnight boarding, bathing only, and no retail, as compared to Resort B, an all-suite resort with indoor and outdoor daycare, obedience training, full grooming, a high-end boutique, and an indoor pool, will need completely different design considerations in order for staff to function efficiently. This is information you should spend time researching and detailing in your business plan as it will effect staffing ratios and provide the designer important information to include in his design.

Long-Term Durability
Watching the budget is important; however, not at the expense of construction materials that won’t hold up. Different areas of your facility will need different finishes.

For aesthetics you might choose a porcelain tile floor in the lobby, but put a troweled epoxy system in the kennel area because of its ease of cleaning and durability. Dogs can cause extreme wear and tear, so it’s critical that the enclosures and other materials hold up in high use areas.

To save cost, you might choose an epoxy paint-on concrete for kennel flooring which will need repainting every 6 months for eternity, or you could use the troweled epoxy system. (The troweled epoxy floor in my wife’s pet resort has lasted for 20 years so far.) This is an area I suggest not compromising on.

Review the purpose of the area and know what cleaning protocol will be in place. If your method of cleaning is spraying down the entire place every day, the materials used there will be different than if you use the wet-vacuum system. Again, cost versus durability raises its ugly head!

Research
I suggest doing as much research as possible on facilities that have the same services that you want to offer. Look at their building and its construction and see how well it has held up. What is their cleaning protocol? Meet with as many pet care center owners as possible. If they are not your direct competition and you don’t monopolize their time, they will most likely be helpful. You will need all this information when filling in the operations section of the business plan. If you have an existing facility, it can still be beneficial to see what’s new and how others are operating.

The main thing is not to get overwhelmed with the process. Resist the tendency to want to jump from idea to breaking ground. While your project is still on paper you have the best chance to avoid mistakes. Take each step in sequence and don’t be afraid to go back and revisit things as the project is molded into its final form. The result will be well worth the effort!

Al Locker is the president of Turnkey, Inc. Turnkey, Inc. is a 52-year old construction company specializing in design and design consulting for the pet industry; designing over 60 pet care facilities around the U.S., and building twelve in the Houston area. Designs range from ground-up construction to lease space build-out/tenant improvements. Al & his wife, Suzanne, have owned ABC Pet Resort since 1991.

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