BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office broke ground Friday morning on a new animal shelter that will replace a Melbourne facility Sheriff Wayne Ivey describes as decades past its usefulness, a project paid for with a $5 million state appropriation, an unspecified amount of county money, and land handed over by the Florida Department of Transportation.
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Ivey announced the groundbreaking in a lengthy post to the agency’s official Facebook page Friday evening, calling it a “monumental and exciting morning” and saying the project has sat at the top of his list “for quite some time.”
The new building will be called the BCSO K9 Saint Francis Animal Care Center, named for Ivey’s current K-9 partner and agency mascot, a bloodhound who took over the role after K-9 Junny died of cancer in March 2025. Saint Francis is himself named for St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.
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What Ivey says is wrong with the current shelter
In his post, Ivey said the existing shelter is “extremely antiquated” and “lacks adequate air conditioning and heat.” He wrote that the building, designed and constructed decades ago, can no longer meet current demand for capacity or keep pace with modern health and welfare standards and best practices.
The Animal Care Center operates at 5100 West Eau Gallie Boulevard in Melbourne. The Sheriff’s Office took over Animal Services from Brevard County on October 1, 2014, at a time when the county’s live release rate had averaged 55 percent over the preceding five years. The agency now advertises Brevard as a no-kill community.
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The new facility will be built on a parcel next door to the current shelter, which Ivey said the Florida Department of Transportation turned over to the Sheriff’s Office. He said the location keeps the new center close to K-9 Junny’s medical and surgery center, which broke ground in September 2023 and opened in February 2025 using private donations from Vicki Shepard and the agency’s Pet Posse fund.
Where the money came from
Ivey credited State Rep. Tyler Sirois and State Sen. Debbie Mayfield with securing a $5 million appropriation from the Legislature that survived Gov. Ron DeSantis’s line-item veto pen. He said county commissioners and the county manager are supplying additional funding, without saying how much.
The sheriff also named the contractors and staff attached to the project: W+J Construction, Tsark Architecture, Trauger Consulting Engineers Inc., Goodson Paving, project manager Alan Moros, Animal Services Director Joe Hellebrand, and Chief Veterinarian Sarah Boyd.
The SPCA of Brevard attended Friday’s ceremony and called the groundbreaking a milestone for animal welfare in the county, according to WFTV. Construction is now underway.
What the announcement left out
Some questions we will seek answers to that weren’t part of the press release inlcude:
The total cost of the project, and how much of it the county is covering beyond the $5 million in state money.
The square footage and kennel capacity of the new center compared to the current shelter.
A projected completion date.
The terms under which FDOT conveyed the adjacent parcel, including any conditions or reverter clauses.
Those answers exist in the county’s capital budget documents, the construction contract, and the property transfer records. The Space Coast Rocket will follow up.
Ivey closed his announcement by saying the new center will “furever change the lives of homeless pets in our community.”
