Wednesday is going to be a very busy day for Slidell city officials as they break ground on two government buildings in different parts of the city in about an hour.

At 9:30 a.m. Mayor Ben Morris, members of the City Council and the Slidell Animal Control staff will break ground for a $2.5 million animal shelter on Terrace Avenue. Then an hour later, hopefully, the mayor and other city officials will have made it over to Second Street in Olde Towne to break ground on the $4.5 million Municipal Building Number 1 right next to City Hall.

Both buildings will replace structures that were either heavily damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina three years ago. The animal shelter will be built on the site of the old Mosquito Abatement building, which is right across the street from the old animal shelter that took 6 feet of water during the storm. Since the storm, the shelter has been refurbished for the animals, but the Animal Control staff has had to work out of a trailer. The new shelter will be bigger, safer, and state-of-the-art, according to Animal Control Director Damien Anti.

While a bulldozer moves dirt, surveyor Ronald Clement of M and N Land Surveying lines up property lines in preparation of construction for the new Municipal Building on Second Street in Olde Towne Slidell. (Staff Photo by Erik Sanzenbach)

Money to build the shelter comes from the California animal protection group Noah’s Wish that spent a long time in Slidell after Katrina, helping Animal Control take care of the all the abandoned animals left behind during the evacuation. Noah’s Wish raised the $2.5 million for the new shelter.

The history of getting Municipal Building Number 1 is a bit more complicated. Slidell City Hall and the old Finance Building next door were flooded during the hurricane. After many months of negotiations and haggling with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Morris was able to get them to tear down the old Finance Building and to restore the first floor of City Hall. It took another year of negotiations to get FEMA to put up $2 milion dollars for the new building with the city picking up the rest of the cost. However, the city and the state of Louisiana had to negotiate a price to tear down the old University of New Orleans building behind City Hall so the new municipal building could fit into the site. The state sold the building to Slidell for $360,000, which was a lower price than when the city sold the site to the site many years ago for $450,000.

Finally, the old UNO building was demolished in early February, and construction can now begin on the new city building. The structure will be an elevated three stories high with the first floor reserved for parking.

The building will house the Council Chambers, and offices, Finance, Data Processing departments, and the City Attorney’s office.

This will be the first of two municipal buildings to be built on the site. Architecturally, both building will resemble City Hall complete with balconies.