Some banks and credit unions in the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene area say they have projects for new or improved facilities planned or in the works in anticipation of growth, following a two-year lull in such activity.

Community 1st Bank, of Post Falls, and New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. are planning new bank branches. Liberty Lake-based Spokane Teachers Credit Union is in the midst of an $8 million renovation of its headquarters, and Spokane-Valley based Horizon Credit Union is moving its Post Falls branch into that city's growth area.

Mary Hughes, financial institutions bureau chief with the Idaho Department of Finance, says the Community 1st branch will be the first new state-chartered bank branch to open in the entire state since 2009.

"I hope it's a renewal of an old trend," Hughes says. "Up until two years ago, branching was common, and banks were growing very quickly."

Gloria McVey, acting director of banks at the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, says she's not ready to say recent new branches are the start of a trend.

"That doesn't mean banks aren't thinking about it," she says. "It just hasn't been like a few years ago, when we saw a lot more."

DFI regulates state-chartered banks, and its functions include the authority to approve applications for new branches. The agency's records indicate a probable statewide uptick in new bank branches this year after the number of new branches fell every year since 2007.

As of March 31, four branches - all west of the Cascades - have opened in Washington state in 2011. DFI approved another three branches in the first quarter of the year, including a planned Walla Walla, Wash., branch of Spokane-based Sterling Savings Bank. Three additional applications for new branches were pending.

Six state-chartered bank branches opened in Washington in all of 2010, down from 14 branches in 2009, 34 branches in 2008, and 47 branches in 2007, DFI's records show. In the Spokane area, the last new branch for a state-chartered bank opened in 2009, when Walla Walla-based Banner Bank opened a branch at 802 W. Riverside downtown.

Expansion activity

Community 1st Bank says its new bank branch will open in Coeur d'Alene this summer.

Federal and state of Idaho regulators recently approved a charter application for a branch to be located there at 435 W. Hanley, says Dave Bobbitt, Community 1st's chairman and CEO.

Community 1st's lone current branch occupies 5,000 square feet of leased space at the southwest corner of Seltice Way and Post Street, in Post Falls. As of last week, it had total assets of $56 million, deposits of $46 million, and total loans of $39.5 million, and employed 12 people, Bobbitt says.

"We've grown to the No. 2 market share out of eight institutions in Post Falls," he says.

Bobbitt says he and an administrative assistant will move to the Coeur d'Alene branch until it's running smoothly, although the Post Falls branch will remain the head office for Community 1st.

The bank has hired longtime Coeur d'Alene banker Ron Ouren as senior vice president. Ouren will be the manager at the new branch.

The Coeur d'Alene branch will have eight other employees and occupy 5,100 square feet of floor space in a vacant 11,600-square-foot commercial building at the northwest corner of Hanley Avenue and U.S. 95 that Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty formerly occupied, Bobbitt says.
Tenant improvements are under way there, he says.

"We're putting in computers and a vault," Bobbitt says. "Not a lot of major things need to be done except the drive-in window and a drive-up automated teller machine."

He says a second branch has been in the bank's growth plan for some time.
"It's our goal to continue to grow in Kootenai County," he says.

Bobbitt says 90 percent of the bank's shareholders reside in Kootenai County.

STCU is renovating its headquarters at 1620 N. Signal, in Liberty Lake, in anticipation of the credit union's continued growth, says Terri Wilson, the credit union's vice president of operations.

STCU owns two buildings there with a total of 115,000 square feet of floor space, half of which is occupied by the credit union.

The remodel project will involve reroofing and catching up on previously deferred upgrades to its heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems.

Other work will include a large training area, an employee dining area, and a courtyard, Wilson says. New energy-efficient windows, doors, and insulation also will be installed.

About 200 of STCU's 450 employees work at the headquarters complex, Wilson says.
"We talked to the staff about what's going to be needed in the next 10 years and realized we're going to outgrow the space we're in," she says. "This is going to position us for the future."

The credit union might move forward this year with plans to build a branch on a lot it has owned for some time at 13211 E. 32nd, in south Spokane Valley, Wilson says.

The credit union also owns parcels at the southeast corner of Hailee Lane and 57th Avenue, on the South Hill, and at the northeast corner of U.S. 2 and Centre Way, in Airway Heights, both of which are targeted for future branches, she says.

STCU last opened branches in the Northtown Square shopping center, on Spokane's North Side, and in Ponderay, Idaho, in 2009.

As previously reported in the Journal, New York-based JPMorgan Chase, a federally chartered bank that doesn't fall under the state finance department's purview, announced in April that it plans to erect a $2.2 million branch in the Indian Trail neighborhood and to open it this fall.

The branch will be one of 12 that Chase plans to open this year in Washington state, although no others are planned for Eastern Washington this year. Chase, however, has said it's looking for additional branch locations in Spokane and plans to open another 12 to 15 branches statewide next year.

The Spokane Valley office of Colorado-based CLC Associates Inc. designed the project. A contractor hasn't been selected for it yet.

The Journal also reported last month Spokane Valley-based Horizon Credit Union plans to move its Post Falls branch to the River City Center retail complex this summer.
Bryan Grytdal, Horizon's vice president for marketing, says the Post Falls branch will occupy 1,700 square feet of space in the River City Center, at 920 N. Highway 41, which is north of Interstate 90 in Post Falls' growth area.

Vandervert Construction, of Spokane, is constructing tenant improvements, and Miller Stauffer Architects PA, of Coeur d'Alene, designed them.