Leaders of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center thought they had a great idea -- turn a six-story Charles Village building into a new home for the group and a campus for organizations to offer child victims services from counseling to immunizations.

But less than a year after the center purchased the building at 2315 St. Paul St., its lofty plans are imploding.

The story of what has happened there reflects the hard times nonprofit organizations face, caught between dwindling donations and a government budget crunch.

Nine prospective tenants for the building have backed away -- and unless a financial savior steps forward soon, the center's board plans to sell the building at the beginning of the year.

"It's just unraveled, beyond anybody's help or control," said Peggy Mainor, a former city child abuse prosecutor who directs the center. "I just know it could be so good."

Six years ago, the child abuse center, one of the first of its kind in the country, began to bring police, caseworkers and prosecutors under one roof downtown to give young victims of sexual abuse an alternative to the series of painful, drawn-out interviews and emergency-room examinations that they typically had to endure.

In the center, detectives interview children as child protection workers look on, gathering information to determine whether a child should be placed in foster care. Prosecutors, social workers and doctors trained to look for signs of sexual abuse usually complete their work with the child in one visit -- saving stress on victims and improving their ability to preserve evidence.

Until February, the center leased offices in what became the Power Plant Live entertainment complex in the Inner Harbor. But Mainor said the rent became too costly and the noise from the nightclub district too loud for the center to stay.

The Charles Village building, formerly home to an engineering and architectural firm, offered a tantalizing amount of space with parking, close to public transportation and away from downtown.

The center purchased the building for $1.05 million and hatched its plan to create a hub for organizations serving children. They planned to pay for $1.6 million in renovations with a state bond bill and a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Detectives with the Police Department's child abuse unit moved in, as did The Children's Scholarship Fund. Other groups expressed interest-- from the Maryland Mentoring Partnership to Turnaround, an agency that counsels abused children.

Then came twin setbacks: Not only did the state legislature fail to approve the bond bill, but the promised federal grant fell through.

The center told tenants they might have to pay to prepare their space, but most could not afford that.

Turnaround, which treats some of the children who pass through the child abuse center, doesn't have the at least $65,000 it would take to make its space ready, said executive director Leslie Kayne.

"I'm just hoping that some fairy godfather will come along and help make this possible," she said.

Some of the nonprofit organizations pulled out because they, too, are facing a financial crunch.

Officials at Advocates for Children and Youth, an organization that works to improve education, child protection and other conditions for children, originally found the St. Paul Street building ideal.

"We thought it was fabulous," said Christine Brubaker, deputy director of development. "We thought it was perfect to have those people for whom we're working right there."

Then the group learned it was losing more than $100,000 in grants it was counting on -- nearly a tenth of its $1.7 million budget.

That, coupled with the extra renovation costs the group would have had to shoulder, made the move impossible, Brubaker said.

The city health department, which wanted to bring in its child immunization program, had to pull out because federal money would no longer cover much of the higher rent.

"I think it did make sense to have our people there," said Dr. Peter Beilenson, the city health commissioner. "These one-stop shops do work nicely. It's really too bad."

If the building is sold, the child abuse center is not likely to stay -- even as a tenant, Mainor said.

"We can't carry an empty building," Mainor said. "We are hoping someone will come through, because we love it here."