Miami-Dade County officials broke ground Tuesday on a new animal shelter in southwest Miami-Dade, a $25 million project that will become the county's second permanent facility for stray and surrendered pets. The South Dade Pet Adoption and Protection Center, rising on 29500 Harriet Tubman Highway, is designed to house up to 200 dogs and 100 cats, giving South Dade residents a dedicated place for animal care, veterinary services and adoptions.
As reported by WPLG Local 10, the roughly 30,000-square-foot shelter will sit on a five-acre parcel and is expected to reduce the county's reliance on its aging overflow shelter in Medley. Miami-Dade Animal Services Director Annette Jose told the outlet that the county's existing shelter capacity has not been sufficient to meet demand, and said of the new project, “the community spoke up and the mayor listened.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the facility will help address what she called a real dumping problem in the area, per the same report. Homestead Mayor Steve Losner added that infrastructure, including pet shelters, has lagged behind the region's exploding needs. Miami-Dade Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, whose district includes much of South Dade, called the new facility desperately needed because so many animals in the area need homes.
A Land Swap Funds Much of the Build
Roughly $11 million of the project's cost is being funded by developers as part of a land exchange involving the county's Medley property, the station's report notes. Under that agreement, approved by county commissioners in June 2025, Miami-Dade swapped the 187,079-square-foot Medley shelter parcel at 7401 NW 74th Street with developer UniCapital Medley QOZB LLC in exchange for the South Dade site, according to Florida Public Notices. The deal requires UniCapital to redevelop the former Medley property into workforce housing, with a minimum of 100 income-restricted residential units, Miami-Dade County has said.
The county's total investment in the shelter grew just weeks before the groundbreaking. On July 21, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners passed Resolution File No. 261292, authorizing an additional $3 million county contribution and a $1 million design and construction contingency, raising the project's estimated cost from $21 million to $25 million, according to NewBizAlert. Barbara St. Aubin said the project is significant for the county, the animal welfare crisis and county residents, per WPLG Local 10, and animal rescue advocates have welcomed the new shelter.
Why Doral's Shelter Has Been Bursting at the Seams
The county's primary Pet Adoption and Protection Center in Doral was designed to house 300 to 350 dogs and 150 cats, but it has routinely held anywhere from 500 to more than 850 animals at once, according to CBS News Miami. The Medley overflow shelter that the new South Dade facility will help relieve is an open-air site without central air conditioning, forcing staff to place ice in water bowls and set up kiddie pools to keep impounded dogs from overheating during South Florida summers.
That overcrowding has had real consequences. In 2024, Miami-Dade Animal Services was forced to temporarily freeze all public intake of non-emergency pets from June 22 to July 10 because shelters simply had no room left. The county cannot euthanize its way out of overcrowding, either: Miami-Dade operates under the Save Charlie Act, a December 2020 law mandating a 90% or higher no-kill save rate and strictly limiting euthanasia to cases of irremediable physical suffering or dangerous animals with poor rehabilitation prospects.
South Dade's Rural Dumping Problem
South Miami-Dade was chosen for the county's second permanent shelter partly because its rural, agricultural stretches have long been magnets for illegal pet abandonment. Miami-Dade Animal Services and county code enforcement teams perform weekly patrols of rural hot spots, including areas like the Redland, to combat dumping on unfenced agricultural and residential properties. The new center is expected to address those dumping concerns directly by expanding access to veterinary and adoption services in the southern part of the county.
To help manage capacity ahead of the new facility's opening, Miami-Dade Animal Services partnered with the Best Friends Animal Society in September 2025, embedding national shelter experts into county operations to optimize adoption, foster and return-to-home programs. The groundbreaking follows county commissioners' initial approval of the property exchange with UniCapital roughly a year earlier, and it marks a concrete step toward relieving the pressure that has strained both the Doral and Medley shelters for years.
