The Honolulu YWCA will embark on a three-year project early next year to restore its downtown headquarters and develop a leadership institute, potentially drawing women and girls from around the globe.

The makeover is the largest for the landmark building on Richards Street since it opened in 1927. When the work is complete, officials hope much of the structure's original splendor, ranging from vaulted ceilings to a sweeping staircase in the lobby, will be restored. Architect Julia Morgan designed the 70,000-square-foot YWCA, five years after she was commissioned to design Hearst Castle.

The YWCA, named Laniakea, still has many of its original fixtures and architectural touches, but additions over the years have covered up arches and cut up large rooms.

So far, the YWCA has raised $3 million for the first phase of the project, which will restore Fuller Hall and the cafeteria. The price tag for the overall project is estimated at $12 million.

The cafeteria will feature a top-notch training kitchen for high school students and will be able to accommodate large-group catering orders. Fuller Hall, which was chopped in two in the 1970s, will be restored to its original size of 3,600 square feet. The hall will also be fitted with banquet seating and audiovisual equipment. Groundbreaking for the project's first phase is scheduled for early next year.

The second phase will renovate the lobby and childcare facilities, and restoration of the "club room" will be part of the project's third phase. That meeting room will accommodate up to 72 people for workshops. Sometime during the 1980s or '90s, it was turned into office space. It now also houses the YWCA's Dress for Success program, which will be relocated.

A women's leadership center will be established in the final phase, but many of its programs are expected to be piloted later this year.

Cheryl Ka'uhane Lupenui, the YWCA's president and chief executive officer, said the center will stress leadership growth as a lifelong process and provide revenue for other YWCA programs. She hopes to attract professionals and up-and-coming women not only from the Islands but from the Mainland and Asia.

"We need to deliver a profit to maintain our expansion of services and invest in our building," Lupenui said. "In the 1900s, this was the gathering place for women and girls to meet. How do we become that gathering place again?"

The overhaul to Oahu's YWCA headquarters and its programs comes after a long planning process initiated in response to increased administrative and program costs and waning revenues. Lupenui said YWCAs across the country are struggling with the transition into the 21st century, largely because they've lost relevance in communities and are failing to attract young women and girls to development programs.

YMCAs, however, are growing in prominence and capital nationwide, attracting wide spectrums of the population with a slew of programs and services.

"The YWCA as a whole has been a dying institution," Lupenui said. "We've lost a number of associations over the years.

"It's brought into question the relevance of the services ... and forced everyone to re-look at what we are doing," she said.

The creation of the leadership institute — a first for any YWCA in the nation — is innovative in that it will be nestled in a non-profit with a permanent home at the downtown facility.

"We want to prepare today's leaders and support them, too," Lupenui said, adding that the institute will also offer programs for girls and young women. "This is a unique venture. It will put something in place that's going to be relevant 20 years from now."

Sara Buehler, executive director of the non-profit Women's Fund, said the institute would fill needs both locally and nationally.

"We have a puka of how to help women succeed in all levels of leadership," she said. "It's a new approach to leadership. I would think that would be appealing to leaders across the board."

Four years ago, Lupenui oversaw a $3.8 million renovation of YWCA's Fernhurst transitional women's shelter in Makiki. The work, completed in August 2004, primed the YWCA for the challenge of fundraising for the upcoming larger capital improvements project, Lupenui said.

About half of the money for the project is expected to be donated by corporate sponsors and individual donors. State appropriations and federal historic preservation grants will also be pursued as funding sources.

At the YWCA on Monday, businesspeople ate lunch in small groups in the cafeteria and in courtyard areas, while a few swimmers completed laps in the nearby pool.

The non-profit has about 3,700 members, and serves hundreds more with programs and development seminars. In 2004, the latest year for which numbers are available, it tallied about $3.7 million from revenues and donations, up by nearly $150,000 from 2003.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.