Lathrop is moving closer to a new and permanent home for its animal shelter.

The Lathrop City Council when they meet Monday at 6 p.m. will consider awarding a $12.7 million contract to Hale Construction to build an animal shelter.

The project also has a construction contingency of $1,912 629 plus $624,750 for utilities and miscellaneous expenses for an overall cost not to exceed $15,288,238.

Lathrop’s temporary animal center is housed at the City' s corporation yard and no longer provides sufficient capacity for the care of animals,

The project will provide a state of the art facility for the care of dogs, cats, many other typical domestic pets and livestock such as goats, sheep and horses.

The new shelter will be constructed north of Lathrop High School at 15005 Stanford Crossing.

The current animal shelter opened in temporary facilities in 2023.

Prior to that, Lathrop contracted with the City of Manteca to use a percentage of that city’s animal shelter space.

Growth in both cities made that arrangement ineffective as the shared space was leading to a large number of animals being euthanized.

Manteca is now in the process of expanding their animal shelter.

It will include an on-site low-cost veterinary facility as well as additional kennels.

The city is also ramping up to hire a part-time coordinator to work with rescue groups to more effectively place dogs and cats that go unadopted.