Donna Burrell Pace has found a new passion in retirement as she moves forward with a business plan for a pet adoption and resource center.
Pace is the founder and CEO of New Leash on Life, which will be a nonprofit pet adoption and resource center, set to open in Crown Point. The project has been underway for about a year, she said, and she’s been working with city officials and an architect on the concepts of the business.
Crown Point Mayor Peter Land said he supports the project and hopes the community can help with the nonprofit’s capital campaign.
The nonprofit has been doing the initial work — including a facility study, conceptual design and community engagement —before it submits plans with city boards, he said. To support the project, Land said the city has been working with Pace to determine if there is city-owned land the nonprofit could use for the facility.
“It’s a great private development that would definitely be a benefit to Crown Point and the region,” Land said. “If we can get it to come to fruition, it would be a big benefit to Crown Point.
About 15 years ago, her daughter, then in third grade, said she wanted to be a veterinarian, Pace said. So, the two of them spent many years after that volunteering at the Lake County Sheriff’s Animal Control and Adoption Center so she could work with animals.
While volunteering, Pace said she noticed that the county animal shelter would often turn animals away because the space was filled. About 3 years ago, Pace said she and her husband sold their real estate company, so now that she’s semi-retired it felt like the right time to begin the business to fill the need for sheltering stray animals and finding them a new home.
Pace said she’s visited nearly a dozen animal facilities throughout the country built within the last 5 years to learn from their experiences. What she found was state-of-the-art facilities with names moving away from the term “animal shelter,” which has a negative connotation, she said.
“You walk in, you do not realize you are in an animal shelter,” Pace said.
New Leash on Life will be a 16,000-square foot facility with a clinic, dog rooms, cat rooms, adoption area with a lobby and space for people to meet and play with animals, and outdoor play spaces, Pace said.
At the Crown Point facility, the resources offered will include dog training, spay and neuter and pet food pantry, Pace said.
Pace and city officials are considering three locations in Crown Point for the facility, she said. One of the possible locations could be a parcel of land the city owns next to the dog park on Center Ross Road across from Legacy Fields, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
When visiting other animal shelters, Pace said she saw many had administrative and medical staff and mainly volunteers, and she would follow a similar structure for the Crown Point facility.
If all goes well, with city approvals and construction, Pace said the goal is to open the business in the fall of 2026.
As a nonprofit, Pace said the facility has started a capital campaign to gather financial support from the community. The biggest opportunities, she said, are naming rights of the various spaces.
The big-ticket naming rights are a donation of $2 million or more gives the donor building naming rights, a $500,000 donation gives the donor medical center naming rights, and a $300,000 donation gives the donor adoption center lobby naming rights.
Every room will have a naming right, Pace said. Outside the facility, Pace said the design includes animal silhouettes, and those can be named with a donation as well.
Anyone who wants to donate can visit newleashcp.org.
“It’s going to take a community,” Pace said.
