Lars Larson: 85 Million for a Dog House

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

Hey folks, I found the single most expensive house in the pacific northwest and it turns out to be a DOG HOUSE.

Well, to be fair, dogs and cats and other critters.

I got curious when all the major media started reporting today about the County’s decision to move forward with the much needed and long overdue replacement of its old animal control center.

They plan to make it bigger which I can’t dispute. At least 35-thousand square feet to replace the aging and decrepit 18-thousand feet they have now…on the same piece of land.

But then came the price tag…85-million bucks.

The Daily Dead Fishwrapper OregonLive put it this way “…The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Thursday to move forward with planning for a new animal shelter, estimated to cost upwards of $85 million if built in 2028.”

I guess when you’re a county that’s so used to paying over 100-million a year on homeless service for a few thousand people, maybe the dollar cost figures no longer shock you.

But I got curious so I did some math.

That works out to 2 thousand, 4 hundred and 28 dollars a square foot.

Construction of the average new house in Portland runs from 150 to 250 dollars a square foot. The animal control building is going to cost ten times that much to build?

Heck, even the brand new condos in Portland’s Ritz Carlton tower came in at a top of 19-hundred bucks a square foot according to the developer…and it went bankrupt.

I know the building has space for staff, certainly a veterinary clinic and maybe even a lunchroom for workers.

But most of those 10s of thousands of square feet are for kennels and spaces to humanely house stray and unwanted animals.

Are they getting Italian marble and crystal chandeliers?

I love my studio dog Sir Winston Churchill like a brother…but I ain’t “putting on the ritz” for his doghouse.