PHOTO / Peter Van Allen
Site work is underway at the construction site on U.S. Route 1 in Falmouth for a new veterinary hospital.
March 3, 2025
Emergency veterinary center for specialty care to open in Falmouth in spring 2026
COURTESY RENDERING
The new location for Portland Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Care hospital will be more than three times larger than the current facility on Warren Avenue.
Pets in need of surgery or with life-threatening illnesses will have a new treatment center come spring 2026 off of U.S. Route 1 in Falmouth.
Portland Veterinary Emergency and Specialty Care is building a 42,000-square-foot facility on an 80-acre parcel near the Falmouth spur.
Owner and lead veterinarian Marta Agrodnia told Mainebiz that the new office will be open for pet care 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will be the largest multi-specialty veterinary hospital in Maine. The only other emergency animal facility is in Scarborough.
“All we do is specialty work,” Agrodnia said. “We do not do any general practice, no vaccinations. We’re criticalists, surgeons, neurologists, cardiologists, oncologists, dermatologists. We see dogs and cats mostly, and only animals that are sick or injured or traumatized.
“We’re the place you don’t want to have to come to, but it’s nice that we’re there when you need us and you don’t have to drive to Boston.”
For now, Portland Veterinary Emergency and Specialty Care has two locations in Portland, a dermatology office on outer Congress Street and a 12,000-square-foot Warren Avenue treatment center, which Agrodnia said the practice outgrew five years ago and the staff is crowded. The bulk of the specialty business will move to Falmouth. The future of the Warren Avenue location hasn't yet been decided.
The practice treats about 200 patients a day, with a staff of 160 and 33 doctors. Agrodnia will be bringing on several more physicians soon.
“We’ll be adding sports medicine and rehabilitation and dentistry," she said. “We just hired a new oncologist, a national, top-notch guy, so we now have three oncologists. There’s a huge need for it. If we can treat an animal’s cancer and give them the best life that they can have, then we want to be able to do that.
“Both dogs and cats have cancers. Just about any cancer a human can get, they can too, and lymphomas can grow almost anywhere. We offer both medical management and surgical management.”
When asked if she was seeing an upsurge in pet illnesses, Agrodnia said, “Not like we were during the pandemic. The pandemic hit the vet industry very hard because the need at that time was profound; it felt like it doubled overnight. We were working 80 to 100 hours a week for almost two years. There was a lot of burnout in the profession.
“There were probably several reasons for the rapid increase, part of it was that there were more adoptions. Part of it was that with people being at home, they were noticing issues with their pets more. Also, peoples’ stress levels were so high that they simply couldn’t bear to lose their pet, they needed that dog or cat in their lives.”
Agrodnia said she purchased the 80-acre parcel after a three-year search.
“We’ll develop more of the land eventually, but I’m a veterinarian, my priority is getting that building completed and the rest will come," she said.
The new building’s design and construction is being facilitated by Lewiston and Portland-based Hebert Construction, Portland-based SMRT Architects and Acorn Engineering and Grover Construction of North Yarmouth.
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