Six nonprofits that serve children and families will move their headquarters to an 18,000-square-foot Chinatown office building as part of a model aimed at maximizing the help provided to at-risk kids.

The building, which is to undergo massive renovations starting next month and will open as early as July, will feature a community center for teens, workshops, tutoring for all ages and showers for homeless families.

The Kukui Children's Foundation bought the office building at 245 N. Kukui St. with $3.5 million in federal money awarded by the city. Judy Lind, executive director of the Kukui foundation, said she wants the building to be something of a "one-stop shop" for kids in need.

The beauty of sharing a space, she said, is that the nonprofits will be able to work together to make sure kids are getting all the help they can get. "Everybody gets the benefit of everybody else's presence," Lind said.

Lind and others to be headquartered at the center said they did not know of a similar building in Hawai'i that houses a range of nonprofit services all aimed at helping the same population.

The mission of the building is to benefit "abused kids."

That definition includes foster youth and homeless children who could be suffering psychological harm from being on the streets. It also includes the children of immigrants and kids with learning disabilities.

The nonprofits to have space in the building collectively help about 900 kids. With the new quarters, they expect to expand their services along with providing more comprehensive programs to those they already help.

Kids Hurt Too and the Hawaii Foster Youth Coalition, both run by executive director Cynthia White, will move to the building. The nonprofits are now being run from private homes and other temporary spaces, White said.

The new building will give the two organizations valuable space for workshops and counseling sessions, and places for kids, including a teen center, a playroom for younger children, and a library and computer room.

The building will also have a "volcano room," with insulated walls and plush dolls and other equipment where kids can act out their aggressions in a safe way.

White said having a central space where kids can feel welcome and secure is vital to her organization. Kids Hurt Too helps children who are grieving, going through a divorce or other traumatic life events or family crisis.

The youth coalition connects foster kids with peers in the foster system and provides them resources that can help them go to college, balance a home budget or live independently.

"This is a place for the coalition to call home," said coalition president Blake Lanoza, 19, who entered foster care when he was 11 years old. "It will give us stability."

Coalition vice president Adrian Gilliland, 20, said he hopes the new building will keep kids from falling through the cracks. He speaks from experience about how one wrong turn in life can have big consequences.

The former Maui resident, who now lives in Makiki, went into foster care full time at 17 after going in and out of the system. At 18, he stole food from a Maui supermarket and was arrested and sent to prison after assaulting a security guard who was trying to stop him from running.

He spent four months behind bars and is still on probation.

He came to O'ahu for drug treatment.

Now that he's clean and sober, Gilliland wants to help keep other foster kids from making the same mistakes he did. He sees the Chinatown building as the perfect place to do that.

"Having a central place like this means kids can come, and we can give them some hope," Gilliland said during a tour of the Kukui Street building last week.

The nonprofits in the building will rent their spaces for about $1.50 a square foot — well below market rate for the area. The money will pay for upkeep of the building and other incidentals, Lind said.

Lind is covering all the renovations, which will cost about $2.5 million, through grants from several organizations, and federal and state agencies.

She said she is still seeking donations to cover the renovations. She has about three-quarters of the money needed to complete the work.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.