STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Work has just started at the new nonprofit center at 433 Oak St. in downtown Steamboat Springs, and Millie Beall, president of the Integrated Community board, can already see the potential.

“When we bought this building in 2015, we stood on the property with the people that were donors and said, ‘look at this — this is a big city lot, and the potential is huge for us to be able to expand one day,” Beall said. “But we never, ever in our wildest dreams thought that we would be doing this only five years later.”

Last week construction crews officially began work on the 433 Oak Nonprofit Center, which will be shared by Integrated Community and Routt County United Way. Construction is expected to be completed in March 2021.

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The original section of the 114-year-old building will be connected to the new 2,166-square-foot addition by a breezeway, which will include a staircase and a new reception area. The first floor of the building will include more office space, and the upstairs will include a conference room, kitchen and restrooms. An elevator will make the building compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the added space will increase privacy for clients.

“We’re going to pretty much double the size,” Beall said. “When we moved into the building, we had three, four and then five employees. Now we have nine full-time employees, plus interns, plus clients, plus volunteers. The space has just got smaller and smaller and smaller over the years.”

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United Way Executive Director Kate Nowak said her organization is also excited about having more space. United Way supports more than 25 other local agencies and more than 40 programs. The two organizations have shared the building since 2015.

“We’ve been planning it for over a year,” Nowak said of the expansion. “All of the work that has been done up to this point has been really tremendous and so to actually see it happen was really great.”

Nowak said there will only be small alterations made to the original home, which was built in 1906 by George and Archibald Wither and was later owned by Routt County Judge Charles Morning and then Dr. Fredrick Willett.

Developers have taken measures to ensure the home’s historic value is protected with the expansion. The new section will be built on a spot where a small garage was torn down, and a small basement will be added to create storage space. Beall said around $861,000, or about 90% of the $970,000 needed for the addition, has been raised with 81% coming from private donors.

“We were hoping to wrap it up with our state foundations, but that hasn’t happened,” Beall said.

She is still hoping to raise the remaining $109,000 through grants but admits that many of the organizations that provide money for capital improvements have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m still writing grants, and we are being relatively successful with our grants,” Beall said. “We have received some funding from the El Pomar Foundation and also from Gates Foundation — probably a third of what we initially had been told that we might be able to receive.”

She said the 443 Oak Nonprofit Center has been invited to write grants for the Boettcher and Buell foundations, and she remains optimistic the overall fundraising goal can be reached.

To reach John F. Russell, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.