St. David’s Center asks for $10 million in bonding to expand services for young children and families

St. David’s Center CEO Julie Shortall and Representative Katie Jones presented House File 244 to the Capital Investment Committee on March 25, requesting $10,000,000 in state bonding to renovate the former YWCA building on Nicollet Mall into a center for early‑childhood mental‑health, developmental therapies and family services.

“Today St. David's offers a range of services — mental health and developmental therapies — to over 7,000 children,” Shortall said, and she told the committee the agency has roughly 2,000 children and families on waiting lists for services. The total cost of the expansion is estimated at $35,000,000; Shortall said the bonding request is “less than a third” of the total and that the organization had already raised $9,000,000 privately.

Representative Jones, sponsor of HF 244, said she vetted the project, toured St. David’s facilities and found the program’s outcomes persuasive. She told the committee the expansion would “create as many as 150 to 200 new jobs and provide training opportunities to 70 interns annually,” while reducing downstream public costs by improving children’s readiness for school and lowering special-education demand.

Committee members asked whether St. David’s had received other recent state childcare allocations; Julie Shortall said the organization did not receive funds from a recent $1.2 billion child-care appropriation and that its Minnetonka child‑care site represents a small share of the organization’s work. Testifiers confirmed St. David’s is a nonprofit and would be tax‑exempt if the project proceeds.

The project is phased and described as shovel‑ready; no committee vote was taken during the informational hearing.