Skip to footer

JFK to construct luxurious terminal for traveling pets

Called The Ark, the new terminal will feature a dog resort, a quarantine facility, and hay-lined stalls for horses, among other amenities. 

|
Classic Communications courtesy of ARK Development via AP
This undated artist rendering provided by Classic Communications courtesy of ARK Development depicts Paradise 4 Paws, a holding area for dogs in a new luxury terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The privately owned ARK, as it's called, will handle the more than 70,000 animals that pass through JFK each year, including dogs, cats, horses, cows, birds, sloths and aardvarks.

Climate-controlled stalls with showers, a 20,000-square-foot luxury “resort” for dogs, and real trees for cats to climb. It might be what your pets are dreaming about when they twitch their legs, but it's also the latest project at JFK airport.

As the Associated Press reported, the $48 million, 178,000-square-foot air terminal made specifically for animals is set to open next year. Known as The Ark, the facility looks set to live up to its biblical namesake. Airports across the country provide services for animals, but none have an entire terminal dedicated to them. The Ark will be the first.

The Ark will replace a 10,000-square-foot kennel known as the VetPort, Crain’s New York Business reported. Developers John Cuticelli and Aaron Perl of Racebrook Capital saw an opportunity to replace the aging facility with a top-notch animal shelter and quarantine. According to Crain’s New York Business, they plan on making money by charging owners as a hotel would.

“It will be a place for people who love their pets like they love their kids,” said lead architect Cliff Bollman, “Maybe more.”

He isn’t kidding. According to AP, The Ark will house a 20,000-square foot “resort” for dogs run by the company Paradise 4 Paws featuring bone-shaped splashing pools, massage therapy, and “pawdicures with colored nail pawlish.” Suites will come complete with flat-screen televisions and video cameras that owners can use to check in on their pets.

The Ark will also provide a top-notch quarantine facility. Many animals arriving from overseas must be quarantined to ensure that they are not carrying any contagious diseases – often up to three days for horses. Currently, horses must be transported about 80 miles north of the airport to a quarantine facility. Lachlan Oldaker, an equine-specialist and member of the architectural team, told the AP, The Ark’s design “…allows planes to taxi directly to the building so horses can be transported in a seamless fashion that reduces stress.”

Many animal owners are more concerned with how their pet is transported. Horror stories surrounding overheated cargo holds tend to circulate social media in waves. But CNN gives several tips to ensure both you and your pet are feeling secure:

  • Avoid summer flights.
  • Opt for direct flights.
  • Make sure your pet is fit to fly.
  • Keep very young puppies and kittens at home
  • Notify airline employees that your pet is on board.

Barbara DeBry, owner of Puppy Travel, told MSNBC “the percentage of people traveling with their pets is going up between 10 and 15 percent monthly.” And according to a 2012 report by Market Watch, a major airline typically accommodates 500 pets a day.

So how much will it cost for animal owners to lodge their precious cargo at the Ark? According to Crain’s New York Business, entry-level accommodation for dogs costs $50 a night at other hotels run by Paradise 4 Paws and the suites could cost up to $100 per night.

The Port Authority expects about 70,000 animals to pass through the Ark annually. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to JFK to construct luxurious terminal for traveling pets
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0720/JFK-to-construct-luxurious-terminal-for-traveling-pets
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe