The largest Hmong-American nonprofit in the United States is bringing a new workforce training center to St. Paul’s Plato Boulevard. And a high school. And a Montessori pre-kindergarten program, which will relocate from the East Side and double in size.

Over the course of the next year or so, that’s just one of the three locations in St. Paul where Hmong American Partnership, or HAP, plans to add job training, youth classrooms, childcare and even assisted living.

The projects, however, depend on a $14 million capital campaign that remains less than half-funded.

TEACHING, TRAINING FACILITY

Once home to a provider of offshore oil drilling equipment, the 30,000-square foot office building at 240 Plato Boulevard will be transformed this year into a teaching and training facility aimed at tots, teens and adult learners alike.

The goal, in part, is to expand the Community School of Excellence, a K-8 charter school on Larpenteur Avenue that serves a large Hmong population, by bringing its new high school classes to the site.

The school will install a ninth grade on Plato this September, followed by a grade level each year beyond that.

Graduates who don’t gravitate to college could instead stay on-site and seek certifications in information technology, healthcare, human services, education or engineering and design.

“Healthcare and IT are the first two tracks we’re rolling out,” said Bao Vang, executive director of Hmong American Partnership, which oversees the 12-year-old K-8 charter school. “The training program here would cater to a younger population,” rather than adult English-language learners, HAP’s traditional target group.

Childcare would be provided on-site for day and evening classes through a Montessori pre-kindergarten program, which will move to Plato Boulevard from Ivy Avenue and double from 30 to 60 kids.

The three-in-one approach to youth learning, childcare and job training has caught the eyes of a who’s who of officials from both the public and private sector.

A groundbreaking at the Plato Boulevard site last week was attended by Minnesota Commissioner of Education Mary Cathryn Ricker, City Council Member Rebecca Noecker and officials with AT&T Minnesota, a major sponsor of HAP’s youth programs.

RICE STREET TRANSPORTATION CENTER

The West Side Flats isn’t the only St. Paul location where HAP, which was founded in 1990, plans to grow services.

At Sycamore and Rice Street, where HAP already offers a commercial driver’s license training program on a five-acre site, a major building renovation will create a new transportation training center. Related Articles St. Paul schools superintendent gets high marks, but board wants progress on equity, enrollment, student achievement

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The 17,000-square foot diesel repair building will feature new classrooms and office space, as well as eight training bays and a wash bay for mechanic instruction.

Both the Plato Boulevard and Rice Street projects will be funded by a $14 million capital campaign, which is still more than $7 million from completion.

The campaign received a major boost last summer, however, when then-Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bonding bill that included $5.5 million to support the two workforce centers, which are both slated to open by late fall.

Vang said the sites will allow HAP to consolidate its existing job training programs, which are scattered, and expand them.

Paul Weirtz, president of AT&T Minnesota, said his company’s ASPIRE program has provided HAP with $475,000 in youth training grants over the past five years, including a $95,000 donation that was officially unveiled to the public on Thursday.

“We’re always looking for organizations involved in youth workforce development,” said Weirtz, during the Plato Boulevard groundbreaking Thursday. “This was a natural fit for us.”

Vang and other speakers at the groundbreaking noted that while industry leaders worry that business growth will be hindered by a shortage of skilled labor, unemployment and underemployment remain high for many communities of color in the Twin Cities, including Southeast Asian immigrants. According to the Pew Research Center, the unemployment rate for Hmong-Americans is 10 percent, compared to 3.1 percent for the general workforce in Minnesota and 3.8 percent for American workers as a whole.

Bridging the needs of industry and labor will require skill-training at a younger age.

A RESTAURANT, ESL CLASSES AND ASSISTED LIVING?

“They’re doing a great job of supporting young people and people of color to create these workforce opportunities for the future, and that’s what we need for the state,” Weirtz said.

Over the past 29 years, HAP has grown to offer a number of social services in and around St. Paul, ranging from school bus transportation to English as a Second Language instruction.

In 2013, the nonprofit purchased the building that housed the former Mai Village Restaurant at University and Western avenues and eventually took over operations there.

HAP has converted the former Mai Village space into a dim sum restaurant known as Tapestry, a social enterprise that serves as on-the-job training for the nonprofit’s hospitality program.

On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council met as the Housing and Redevelopment Authority to approve a development agreement for a third major HAP real estate endeavor — a 50-unit assisted living facility near University Avenue, on the southwest corner of Sherburne Avenue and Galtier Street. Related Articles Marchers shut down I-94 through St. Paul to protest Breonna Taylor decision

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Working with a series of investors, HAP would serve as the developer for the Frogtown Meadows facility and a second phase of the L-shaped project — a new two-story commercial building to replace the vacant structure in the northwest corner of Galtier and University avenues.

Redevelopment at the site has been planned but stalled for more than a decade.

The Metropolitan Council, the metro’s regional planning agency, recently forgave the $1 million loan that in 2008 allowed the city to acquire the land, which sits at the site of the former Saxon-Ford car dealership.