Turning a Retail Space Into a Veterinary Clinic

Many veterinary practices in Dallas-Fort Worth open in a shopping center. The parking is out front and the sign faces the street. But a retail bay was built to sell things, not to care for animals. It has a plain slab, a small rooftop unit, walls that may stop at the ceiling, and a landlord with other tenants to keep happy. This guide covers what changes when you turn retail space into a veterinary clinic. For room-by-room planning (radiology, surgery, finishes), see our guide to veterinary clinic design and construction. If you are weighing your own building instead, read building a new veterinary hospital.

Plumbing and floor drains in an existing slab

A retail bay usually has one or two restrooms and a mop sink near the back. A clinic needs a sink in every exam room, a wet table in treatment, a bathing tub, a washer, and drains in the kennel runs. Almost all of it drains down through the slab, so the concrete has to be saw-cut, trenched, and patched.

Three things decide how hard that is. The first is the sewer line: where it leaves the building and how deep it is. A drain pipe has to fall all the way to the sewer, so a run from a kennel at the far end of a deep bay can arrive too low to connect. A plumber can locate the line and inspect it with a camera before you sign.

The second is what is inside the slab. Many North Texas slabs are post-tensioned, with steel cables held under high tension inside the concrete. Cutting one is dangerous and hard to repair, so the slab is scanned and the cables marked before any saw touches it, and the landlord may want its structural engineer to approve the cuts.

The third is slope. Runs and wash areas need the floor to slope to the drain, and that slope is formed in the new concrete. It cannot be made up later with flooring. Decide early between individual floor drains and trench drains (long, narrow drains with a grate), and where hair and solids will be caught so the lines can be cleaned. At Animal Eye Clinic in Arlington, a renovation that turned an existing space into a veterinary clinic, we installed a flushing trench drain at the canine kennels and rubber and epoxy flooring in the clinical areas.

Exhaust and odor

A retail rooftop unit is sized for a store. Animal areas need more outside air, steady exhaust, and lower air pressure than the lobby and exam rooms, so air moves toward the kennels and not back toward clients. That usually means a new or added rooftop unit, new exhaust fans, and new openings in the roof.

In a shopping center, odor also has to stay out of the neighbors' spaces. Many centers use the open space above the ceiling as the return air path, and that space can run right over the top of the wall between tenants (the demising wall). If it does, kennel air can drift next door. Close that wall to the roof deck, seal around ducts and pipes, and keep return air from animal areas separate from the front of the clinic. Place exhaust outlets away from fresh air intakes, your front door, and any restaurant patio.

Noise between tenants

Barking travels through the weak spots: walls that stop at the ceiling grid, the shared space above it, gaps around pipes, the storefront glass, and the back door. The neighbor may be a salon, a dentist, or a restaurant, and none of them want to hear a ward.

The fixes are mostly construction. Run the demising wall and the ward walls to the roof deck and seal the top. Add insulation and extra layers of drywall where the plan calls for them. Use solid doors with seals into wards. Keep kennels off the shared walls where you can, with storage, restrooms, or the mechanical room as a buffer. At Animal Eye Clinic, laminated glass walls at the kennel room cut the sound while keeping sight lines for staff.

Landlord approvals

In a lease space, the landlord is a second owner of your project. Most retail leases limit what a tenant can do to the slab, the roof, the storefront, and the shared systems, and a veterinary clinic touches all four. Get these answered in writing first:

• Use. The lease, and the center's other leases, allow a veterinary clinic, and boarding if you plan it. Some centers give another tenant an exclusive right that blocks pet services. The city may also treat overnight boarding differently from an outpatient clinic.
• Slab cuts. Approval to saw-cut and trench, who scans the slab, and whether the landlord's engineer must sign off.
• Roof work. Approval for new units, fans, and openings, and whether the landlord's roofer must do the work to keep the roof warranty.
• Hours and outside areas. After-hours staff and animals, any relief area, and where waste goes.
• Restoration. Whether you must remove the clinic and patch the floor when the lease ends.

Our guide on what to ask before signing a medical lease covers the rest of the lease. We will walk a space with you before you sign, and our first budget, an early range, is at no charge. A detailed estimate is priced later from the drawings.

Kennel and treatment layout in a retail bay

Most retail bays are narrow and deep, with glass at the front and a service door at the back. That shape suits a veterinary clinic well. The public zone goes at the storefront: lobby, reception, and exam rooms, with separate seating for dogs and cats if there is room. The clinical zone fills the middle: treatment, pharmacy, lab, X-ray, and surgery. Wards, isolation, and any boarding go at the back, near the service door and, if possible, near where the sewer line leaves the building.

Exam rooms with a second door into treatment keep animals out of the public hallway. Put isolation near the back door so a contagious patient never crosses the lobby.

Hillside Veterinary Clinic in Dallas, a 4,106-square-foot remodel we completed in 2019, works this way: reception at the front, then a central treatment area with stainless tables and a wet table that connects to surgery, an X-ray room, exam rooms, and a pharmacy and lab counter.

Learn more about how we finish out and renovate existing space, and about our veterinary construction work. Structures and Interiors also builds new buildings from the ground up for practices that want their own building.

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