A vacant boys' locker room tucked into the lower level of St. Cloud City Hall could soon house something entirely different: a city-run animal shelter. St. Cloud city leaders are proposing to spend up to $600,000 renovating the space inside the former Technical High School building, part of a broader push to bring animal impound and sheltering services fully in-house.
The St. Cloud City Council is set to hear the proposal at its regular meeting on Monday, August 17, as reported by WJON. The project would fund improvements to safety, security, accessibility, and other lower-level functionality at City Hall, according to the outlet, and the city plans to draw on reserve funds rather than new taxes to pay for it.
City Hall has occupied the 1201 7th Street South building since March 2022, when a renovation project exceeding $10.4 million converted the former high school's classrooms into municipal offices, according to the City of St. Cloud. That renovation left lower-level spaces, including the boys' locker room, unassigned for future expansion — a gap city leaders now want to fill with shelter operations.
Decades of Outside Contracting Coming to an End
St. Cloud contracted out its stray animal impoundment and sheltering services for many years, per the same WJON report, relying on Tri-County Humane Society at 735 8th Street NE to manage local strays before the city began shifting duties in-house. That arrangement, the report notes, caused cost escalation, resident inconvenience, and staff inefficiencies over time.
The city began providing partial animal sheltering services itself starting in 2025, and the shift has already shown financial returns. St. Cloud estimates the partial in-house sheltering saved the city about $124,000 that year, and the city projects reduced expenditures of roughly $152,000 for this year alone, with annual savings eventually reaching about $170,000, per the outlet's reporting.
Under current St. Cloud Health and Inspections Department procedures, pet owners reclaiming impounded strays must pay municipal impound and daily boarding fees at City Hall during business hours before retrieving their pets from shelter facilities, according to the City of St. Cloud. The proposed locker room shelter would build on that existing framework as the city continues moving animal care functions under one roof.
Staffing Up and Chasing Regional Partnerships
The transition has come with new hiring. The city's Health and Inspections Department began expanding its workforce by bringing on dedicated Animal Control Officers and part-time Animal Care & Control Technicians in late 2024 and again in 2026, based on official job listings posted by the department.
City leaders are also exploring partnerships with area cities to provide animal sheltering services beyond St. Cloud's own borders. One area city has already expressed interest in partnering, and WJON reports that such a partnership would generate about $25,000 a year in additional revenue for St. Cloud. The city has also submitted a $100,000 grant application to the ASPCA to help offset costs, according to the outlet, and officials estimate the overall shelter-related improvements would pay for themselves in less than three years.
Part of a Larger Reshuffling Around the Old Tech High Campus
The locker room conversion is only the latest change to ripple through the former Technical High School campus since City Hall's 2022 move. In May 2026, the city issued a Request for Proposals to sell and redevelop a 3.27-acre vacant parcel known as the North City Hall site, following the 2023 demolition of the school's 1955 and 1975 building additions, according to WJON.
That same month, the St. Cloud Planning Commission reviewed a proposal to relocate the historic 1939 James J. Hill statue and plaza from the northeast corner of the City Hall campus to neighboring Waite Park, aligning with the city's master development plan, as reported by KNSI. Reusing leftover school space inside City Hall itself isn't new either — the St. Cloud Recycled Art Project Shop, known as SCRAPS, expanded into a larger room within the building following the 2021 municipal move, according to the organization's own account.
The animal shelter plan also fits within longer-term planning goals. St. Cloud's draft Downtown Comprehensive Plan, released in April 2026, builds on the city's 2015 plan that originally guided the conversion of Technical High School into City Hall, per KNSI. Meanwhile, Tri-County Humane Society — founded in St. Cloud in 1974 and marking its 50th anniversary in 2024 — continues to serve as a regional hub for animal welfare, having co-hosted the 23rd annual Minnesota Animal Welfare Conference in the city in June, according to the nonprofit.
For now, the fate of the old locker room rests with the council, which will formally weigh the $600,000 spending plan at Monday's meeting.
