March 7, 2022

PAWS is building new $20M Wildlife Center in Snohomish

Imagse from PAWS [enlarge]

The 4,600-square-foot center is rising on a 25-acre site.

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The new center’s surgery room will be nearly five times the size of the existing surgery room in Lynnwood.

Progressive Animal Welfare Society is in the midst of building a new $20 million Wildlife Center on 25 acres in Snohomish, west of state Route 9 and about a block north of 136th Street Southeast. It will replace the group's smaller Wildlife Center at 15305 44th Ave. W. in Lynnwood.

PAWS said the new campus at 13508 WA-9 will provide more space and modern facilities that will significantly improve its ability to care for sick, orphaned and injured wild animals.

CEO Heidi Wills Yamada wrote in an email that PAWS has outgrown the Lynnwood facility. The group cares for up to 5,000 wild animals a year representing over 150 different species. These animals are nursed back to health and released into the wild.

“We are excited about the new surgery room, in particular,” Will Yamada wrote. “The surgery room we currently operate out of (literally) is 86 square feet with only one door for ingress/egress. The surgery room in our new wildlife hospital will be 420 square feet with two doors for ingress/egress. This is important as we sometimes operate on large carnivores including black bears and bobcats.”

Wills Yamada told the Everett Herald in January that the new 4,600-square-foot wildlife hospital could serve up to 30 bears at a time, while the Lynnwood center can only handle six. The Lynnwood site will continue to provide shelter for cats and dogs after the new center opens, according to the newspaper.

Jones & Jones of Seattle is the architect. It says on its website that the new campus “will be eco-friendly and provide education and training, video outreach and interpretive facilities while caring for wild animals with minimal human interaction.”

Trico Companies of Burlington is the general contractor, with JLL as the owner's rep. Trico has finished much of the center's exterior and is building out the interior.

Wills Yamada said construction should be finished and the new center operational by the second quarter of 2023, but PAWS is planning open house tours of the hospital in May and June.

The Everett Herald wrote about a $10 million second phase that includes construction of six wildlife enclosures, an aquatics center and a second building with baby bird nurseries, animal food preparation areas and administrative offices. Wills Yamada told the newspaper that the hospital won't be operational until the six enclosures are built.

Wills Yamada said PAWS is holding a fundraising campaign to help fund the new Wildlife Center. Those who want to support the project can email PAWS at snohomish@paws.org.