NORTH ATTLEBORO - The town's animal shelter has long housed pets looking for a new home - now it is the shelter itself that is finding a new place.

With cramped quarters at its current Clifton Street facility, a proposal to build a new shelter inside the World War I Memorial Park on Elmwood Street is garnering support. The park commission recently voted in favor allowing the construction of a new shelter, estimated at $2 million, at a location in the park.

"I am so excited," said Animal Control Officer Karen Fontneau. "We don't have the money yet, and we don't have the OK from town meeting yet, but we have the site."

The proposal calls for the building to be located along the park's one-way road in the area between the turnoff for Petti Field and Sunrise Hill.

"We are confident that the project will be done in the right way, and will make a wonderful asset to the community," said Park Director Steve Carvalho. "The park commission has asked that a minimal number of requests be followed so the casual person walking through the park won't be distracted by barking dogs. The park is such a tranquil place, and will stay that way." There has long been talk of putting an addition onto the current shelter, however, as plans were developed it made more sense to construct a new building instead. Space is tight at the animal control office's current quarters.

"We would have a bigger building with a quarantine, different dog kennels and a small conference room for people to go in when they want to adopt an animal. We'd have a storage room and a kitchen - right now we wash all the food bowls in the cat room and the cats like to play in the water and knock everything over," Fontneau said.

The animal control office has been diligently fundraising, and has collected about $75,000 through donations, which paid for the plans.

Although $75,000 may sound like a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 million cost of the whole project - a lot of that money has been arriving in the form nickels from bottle and can deposits. Fontneau said a fundraising campaign is being developed.

"We've got drawings of the building that just have to be amended and then we'll start getting the pictures out and doing more fundraising. We have tons of ideas."

Among them will be the possibility of selling bricks for a memorial garden at the shelter, seeking corporate donors who could have rooms in the shelter named after them, and possibility getting schools involved.

Fontneau said the municipal building committee has been working on the plans and it is possible the project could go before town meeting in April.

AMY DeMELIA can be reached at 508-236-0334 or at ademelia@thesunchronicle.com.