AmericanWest Bank, of Spokane, plans to open four new facilities in the Spokane area and North Idaho this year and hopes to move its downtown-Spokane branch next year into a sizable new building that it says developers are planning to construct elsewhere in the city center.


In the latter project, the bank is working with two developers who would erect a structure in excess of 30,000 square feet between Browne and Division, says Duane Brandenburg, president and CEO of the banks Northwest region, which includes Spokane, Davenport, Chewelah, and Colville. He declines for now to be more specific about the location.


If everything works out, well be moving into a new building downtown next year, he says. Theyre going to build a Class A location. It will probably be three or more stories. The property is under option, although some zoning issues must be addressed, he says.


The structure probably would have room for two other tenants besides AmericanWests downtown branch, which would occupy 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, Brandenburg says. The new branch would provide much-improved drive-through banking service and more parking than the banks current downtown branch, at 222 N. Wall, he says.


Many of the banks downtown-branch customers are businesses that like to make their deposits at 5 p.m., Brandenburg says. Our customers need to get in and out of there, he says.


One of the four projects AmericanWest is targeting for this year is a 15,000-square-foot regional office on which it hopes to begin construction shortly at the northwest corner of Dishman-Mica Road and Appleway Boulevard.


That will be a major financial center, Brandenburg says. Thats a big building. We have almost two acres there.


In its other projects this year, the bank will make a push into North Idaho as it opens a branch in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, north of Coeur dAlene, in a modular building; builds and opens a branch in Lewiston, Idaho; and builds a branch later in Post Falls, Brandenburg says. AmericanWest has only one Idaho branch now, in Moscow.


All three of its planned Idaho branches will be brand-new branches, rather than replacements for older branches. It can take more time for a bank to earn money on its investment when it builds a new branch than when it moves an older branch to new location, Brandenburg says. Its always a challenge to do it and make your earnings, but weve got to grow, too, he says.


Many businesspeople have operations in both the Spokane-area and North Idaho markets, and they want to be served in all of those markets, he says. If you dont serve them, somebody else will. Were trying to grow our bank and make a profit.


While AmericanWests plans sound aggressive, were a pretty good size bank; our assets are $700 million, and we have 31 branches, Brandenburg says.


The regional financial center at Dishman-Mica and Appleway will provide a new home for the banks Northwest region office, which currently is at its Northpointe branch at 9506 N. Newport Highway, Brandenburg says.


As loan officers at the banks 31 branches work to arrange loans for customers, the regional financial center will prepare loan documents for them, then store the documents after the loans have been executed, Brandenburg says. We will be doing a large amount of loan servicing out of there for those banks, he says. With the exception of residential mortgages, the bank will handle processing for all of its loans there.


The center, which also will include a full-service bank branch, will employ a total of 31 people at first, Brandenburg says. Some of those employees will transfer from other AmericanWest locations, but the center likely will hire additional employees and eventually will boost its staff to 35 or 40 people if its successful, Brandenburg says.


Vandervert Construction Inc., of Spokane, will erect the $1.5 million building, and should start work on it shortly, he says. Its expected to open this fall.


Meanwhile, Vandervert Construction also will build AmericanWests new 4,000-square-foot branch in Lewistons Bedrock Center, and should start on it shortly, too, Brandenburg says. That center was blasted out of a huge granitic bluff that overlooks Lewiston on a hill south of the city center.


That new branch, to be called the Palouse branch, will be built at a cost of $450,000, he says. It will be constructed on a pad part way up a bluff to the main part of the center, which is the site of a new Home Depot Inc. home-improvement store and a Safeway Inc. supermarket, Branden-burg says.


The full-service branch will employ maybe five people, he says.


The Dalton Gardens branch will be at the northwest corner of Prairie Avenue and Government Way, Brandenburg says. To hold down its costs as it brings that branch on line, the bank will operate it in a modular building for about a year, he says. Then, well go in with a branch similar to the one that well build in Lewiston, he says. The bank hopes to have the branch opened in the modular building yet this spring.


Brandenburg adds, Well follow up later this fall with a branch in Post Falls. Brandenburg declines to say where that branch will be, explaining that the bank has only a loose deal for a site so far.