The campaign to get a volunteer-run rescue into a building of its own at 606 Skyline Road.
Almost Home is the campaign to move LAWS into 606 Skyline Road. Everything LAWS does today happens in a small adoption center and in the spare rooms of foster homes. The building is how that changes.
We are not asking anyone to imagine it. The roof is on, the floors are down, the plan is with the City, and the remaining work has a price on it. This page is the whole picture, including the parts that are not finished.
A new roof. Heating units. Electrical. Finished flooring through the cat rooms, the hallways, the kitchen, the lounge and the meeting space. None of it photographs well and all of it had to happen first.
This was paid for by people in Laramie, by tradespeople who cut their rate or donated it outright, and by grants. The building is owned free and clear, which is why every dollar from here goes into the building rather than into a bank.
Fund the next pieceOur Type 3 site plan for the property is permit SITE-26-0013. The City's review returned nine items in July, we answered every one, and the full package went back to the City on August 4, ahead of our deadline. The City’s second review has now come back, and it is progress: engineering has signed off on the drainage work after one small tweak, and the planning department sent a short list of remaining items, from labels on the lighting plan to a recorded easement for the shared driveway next door. We are working through the list and preparing the next resubmittal now.
Rain and snowmelt have to be caught on our own land instead of running off it. The old berm out front becomes a shallow basin, seeded and planted, sized with room to spare.
The front of the building gets finished in materials the city allows, in colors that suit the street. No bare block, no metal siding.
A screened enclosure on a new concrete pad along the south fence, out of sight, with the collection route already walked and approved.
Marked stalls including a van-accessible one, a bike rack, and a painted walkway from the public sidewalk to the front door so nobody arrives down the drive lane.
A new tree along Skyline Road, a shrub, drip irrigation to keep them alive, and four benches by the frontage and the basin.
We measured our outdoor lighting at every property line and it reads zero at the boundary. Nothing spills into a neighbor's window.
The fire department, the police department and the building code office all reviewed the plan and had nothing to add. This is the outdoor work. The building's inside is a separate job, and it is the one that needs money.
A volunteer contractor walked the building with us and the answer was not the one we wanted. The scope is settled, and here it is.
There is one finished restroom, 106 square feet, and it cannot be made accessible inside its own walls. No layout works. A wall comes out and the room gets bigger.
The second one is being carved out of the 612 square foot pet pantry. We are giving up pantry space, on purpose, because a building the public uses needs two.
Both rooms need the concrete slab cut open. The drains that are there now do not sit within the sixteen to eighteen inches from the wall that accessible fixtures require, so the waste and vent lines have to be moved. The two rooms adjoin along part of one wall, which is the only reason the second one is cheaper than the first: the slab is opened once, the permit is pulled once, and the trades show up once.
There is a reason we are not splitting this across two funding years. The pantry feeds households in Albany County. Once it is in service, opening that floor again means closing it.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Restroom one, enlarged out of the existing room | $14,100 |
| Restroom two, built into the pet pantry | $10,900 |
| Accessible high-low drinking fountain | $2,172 |
| Fountain installation | $1,050 |
| Independent accessibility verification, both rooms and the fountain | $1,500 |
| Demolition, trenching, backfill, framing and finish, donated by volunteers | Donated |
| Still to raise | $29,722 |
Roughly $21,800 more in labor is being donated, which puts the real value of this phase near $51,522. LAWS is asking the community to cover about 42 percent of it. We budgeted the third-party verification deliberately: accessibility is enforced by the Department of Justice and by private lawsuits, not by a building inspector signing off, and a rescue that gets this wrong pays for it twice.
After the restrooms, the animal rooms need moisture-resistant drywall. Ordinary drywall does not survive a room that gets hosed down, and a room that cannot be cleaned properly is a room where illness moves between animals.
This is the last big material cost between the building and the animals living in it.
LAWS buys 606 Skyline Road outright. For the first time in twenty-six years the organization owns the ground it stands on.
The structural and mechanical work nobody sees. Replaced roof, new heating units, electrical brought up to what a working animal facility needs.
Finished flooring across the cat rooms, hallways, kitchen, lounge and meeting space. Funded by the community and largely installed by donated labor.
Site plan SITE-26-0013 filed with the City of Laramie. Nine corrections come back in July across engineering and planning.
Full resubmittal uploaded, every correction answered, with a response letter walking the City through each one. Under review now.
Two accessible restrooms and a drinking fountain, then moisture-resistant drywall in the animal rooms. This is the part that needs funding.
Cat rooms, dog areas, medical space, and a community room in a building LAWS owns.
Sponsor a space, or contribute materials, trade, and services. Donated labor is why this phase costs LAWS 42 percent of its real value instead of all of it.
The tree is built and on the wall at 606, bare and waiting for its leaves. Each engraved leaf is a name that stays as long as the building does.
Help create the cat rooms, dog areas, medical spaces, and community rooms animals will call home.
Each of these is a real room or system in our new home at 606 Skyline Road. Pick one and we will talk through what sponsoring it looks like.
The welcome every visitor and adopter gets.
Orientations, training, and community events.
Where foster families gear up.
Keep animals warm through Laramie winters.
A quiet room for cats awaiting adoption.
A quiet room for cats awaiting adoption.
A quiet room for cats awaiting adoption.
Indoor/outdoor runs for our dogs.
Sponsor this space in our new home.
Sponsor this working space.
A calm space where people and animals meet.
Sponsor this renovation project.
Sponsor this working space.
A quiet place to remember beloved pets.
Donate skilled trade work.
Everyday supplies for the animals in our care.
A slab that has to be cut. A pantry giving up square footage. Walls that still need to be washable. It is unglamorous, it is costed to the dollar, and it is the last stretch.
