New Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus

Exterior photo of Papago Campus with Rob and Melani Walton name

The Campaign to Transform Animal Welfare

Since our first day of operations in 1957, AHS has innovated and introduced multiple new programs to save the lives of Arizona’s pets. By 2013, we knew we had to push even harder to create the pet-friendly future our rapidly-growing community needed.

We designed, tested, and introduced new units like the Bottle Baby ICU, Parvo ICU, and Mutternity Suites to increase the life-saving efforts of our trauma hospital. Affordable, reduced-cost or free spay/neuter outreach targeted high-surrender, high-stray areas. The Pet Resource Center offered help to struggling pet owners so they could keep their beloved pet rather than surrender them to a shelter in hard times.

The results were dramatic. We decreased euthanasia by 85% – 130,000 additional lives were saved over the past nine years in large part through medical interventions developed at AHS to save severely injured, abused, and ill pets. The greatest long-term benefit came with fostering and adoption services that united once neglected animals with loving owners.

There Is More Work to Do

Despite incredible progress, thousands of homeless and abused pets need our help, and the numbers are increasing steadily with the Valley’s growing population. It became clear that our capacity was limited not by our determination but by a 66-year-old Sunnyslope facility. It was our only operating unit for decades – most recently housing our critical medical services – but now failing and needing replacement.

Building a Better Future for Arizona Pets

We long imagined and planned a state-of-the-art medical facility to meet the needs of our rapidly growing community. On November 4, 2021, we took our biggest step yet to make this vision a reality: we broke ground on the Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus.

This new location near Papago Park (at the juncture of the 202 and 143 freeways) will allow us to offer comprehensive medical interventions in a world-class animal trauma hospital paired with behavioral care for pets at a level not seen in the United States. The Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus will be an unparalleled healing facility, AHS’ flagship campus in a network of locations and mobile units serving central Arizona.

As our Valley grows and changes, we must do more to reduce life-threatening illness, injuries, and animal abuse. AHS must do more, and we will. We are just getting started.

The Impact of our Papago Park Campus

Our new Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus anchors a multi-unit system of care with specialized services for homeless, sick, and injured pets. With programs in multiple locations, we anticipate dramatic improvements in key service areas.*

*Compared to baseline year 2020

  • 25% more homeless animals receiving trauma and medical treatment.

  • 10% increase in response to calls reporting abuse, cruelty, and neglect.

  • 109% more spay/neuter surgeries.

  • 40% more underserved pets receiving affordable veterinary care.

  • 24% more animals adopted into caring homes, reunited with families, and placed with rescue partners.

  • 30% more animals transferred into the Arizona Humane Society from organizations.

Experience the New Campus

Imagine a community where no animal suffers on the streets, where we combat animal homelessness and abuse with leading-edge strategy and technology, hand-in-hand with concerned citizens and animal advocates.

Imagine a safe haven where severely injured and abused animals receive state-of-the-art medical and behavior rehabilitation, interventions scarcely thinkable today.

Our vision is to create a comprehensive network of services for Arizona’s most vulnerable pets. The Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus will serve as a regional hub providing acute medical and trauma care, behavior rehabilitation, adoption resources, and education programs for both children and adults. The Papago Park Campus will be a teaching hospital for both Midwestern University Veterinary School and the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine, programs that address a critical shortage of veterinarians in the state.

View Our Construction Progress

Want to see the Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus come to life? Follow along with our video updates showcasing the construction progress of this new lifesaving campus.

Render of Jamie L. Middleton lobby and petique at papgo park campus
exterior render of new papago park campus
render of new papago park campus medical area
render of new papago park campus
render of catio at papgo park campus
render of new papago park campus intake lobby
render of spay/neuter area of papago park campus
render of multipurpouse room at papago park campus
exterior render of new papago park campus
The new Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus will include:
  • Watts Family Medical Complex
  • Lazin Animal Foundation Trauma Hospital
  • Nina Mason Pulliam P.E.T. Center
  • BISSELL Pet Foundation Spay & Neuter Unit
  • Susan & Mark Mulzet Parvo ICU
  • Veterinarian Student Teaching Program and integrated tech for real-time surgery viewing 
  • Doris Norton Kitten Nursery Unit with Bottle Baby ICU
  • The Withycombe Family Mutternity Suites
  • Meowternity Suites
  • Convenient EAMT™ ambulance zone and dedicated triage area
  • Flexible kennel space with maximum natural light to support circadian rhythms
  • Ann Siner Foster Wing
  • Kallie Rose & Rohit Tripathi Animal Assistance Wing
  • Outdoor Pappas Play Yard for dogs
  • “Catios” for outdoor enrichments
  • Adoptions with calming “meet and greet” spaces
  • Jamie L. Middleton Lobby, a welcoming orientation point for adopters, children, and public tours
  • Retail store with gear-fitting areas for dogs
  • Echo Coffee Shop inside the retail store, just off the lobby.
  • Paw-cademy Classrooms and community spaces
  • Suzanne Pearl Family Serenity Garden—a quiet, safe space for saying goodbye
  • Cece Claudio Feline Critical Care Center

Fulfilling the Promise:

Animal Welfare Services Re-Imagined, Expanded, and Delivered

Once complete, our Rob & Melani Walton Papago Park Campus, coupled with other locations in our system of care, will greatly expand our capacity to serve Arizona pets and families.

A planned expansion of our Nina Mason Pulliam South Mountain Campus will create the space needed for this campus to become a safe haven for pets who need the most time-intensive recovery and rehabilitation from situations like hoarding, disaster relief, and cruelty cases.

While we once considered closing our Sunnyslope Campus, the growing demand from our local community requires continued service through the existing Marge Wright Veterinary Clinic. This expansion will keep the focus on spay/neuter surgeries to help manage the growing population of abandoned and in-home pets in the area.

Our vision is bold, and there is much to be done. We are just getting started.

Beyond the Vision

The new Rob & Melani Walton Campus at Papago Park is the result of bold planning and the response of a community committed to the best care possible for the animals we love, a new network of locations, and programs that are a model for other major cities.

Investment in the new campus included:

  1. $4.5 million to acquire the land
  2. $46.5 million to build the new facility
  3. $33 million contributed by 240 donors to the capital project
  4. $18 million committed by AHS from funds functioning as an endowment.

In addition to record-setting support from donors, we partnered with Ryan Companies, a civic-minded general contractor with expertise in medical and hospital construction. Ryan Companies generously offered to build the facility at cost while assisting us with securing at-cost or in-kind materials from sub-contractors.

The result of such bold planning and leadership donors is a state-of-the-art animal hospital and adoption center unlike anything the Southwest has ever seen. AHS will be poised to provide a system of care to our community and beyond. The physical facilities will be a network of locations including two major campuses, two stand-alone public veterinary spay/neuter/wellness clinics, one mobile wellness clinic, and one additional off-site adoption location.

Our work continues to complete the new animal medical campus, and then to fulfill the plan for increased, specialized care for sick, injured, and abused animals throughout central Arizona.

We invite investors to support the new AHS, one that is equipped with de-centralized facilities and mobile clinics to reach and serve communities most in need. Our new campus is a hub in a system of care made possible by the generosity of thousands of people who share our vision for a better life for all companion animals.

We are just getting started. We invite you to join us.

For more information about how to support AHS, please contact Nancy Mitchell, our Senior Manager of Major & Campaign Gifts, at 602.323.8834 or via email at nmitchell@azhumane.org.

Guided by Expert Leadership

The Arizona Humane Society is honored to have the most passionate, committed and successful animal welfare advocates in the community leading this initiative.

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Join Us on the Journey

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