Sterling Savings Bank, of Spokane, has stationed four business bankers in a North Side building that its having remodeled for its seventh Spokane-area branch. The building already is occupied by its Action Mortgage Co. subsidiary.


Action Mortgage has been leasing much of the lower level of the structure, located at 9425 N. Nevada at the southwest corner of Nevada and Holland Avenue, and will move its operations to the second floor to make way for the new branch, says Jennifer Lutz, Sterling spokeswoman.


Sterling has had four business bankers working in the first floor Action space since January and will add three consumer bankers in the new branch when the remodeling work is done, says Lutz.


The three-story building, which has more than 30,000 square feet of floor space, is owned by Northpointe Professional Center LLC, of Spokane, of which Spokane contractor Dick Vandervert is a partner.


Vandervert Construction Inc., of Spokane, began remodeling the building last month and should complete it in September, says Lutz.


Duane Grummons, an orthodontist, will maintain his business office on the first floor of the structure, and the other two tenants in the buildingYoung Life and Global Comm Groupwill keep their offices on the second floor where Action Mortgage also will be. Additional floor space is available for lease on the second floor, says Jason Strain, a property manager for Vandervert. The third floor currently is unoccupied.


Work on the 2,900 square feet of floor space that Action will occupy on the second floor is being done first. Actions 10 employees at the site are now working on the first floor along with the four Sterling business bankers. When the second floor is completed, within the next two weeks, Action employees will move to that floor, says Strain. The Sterling business bankers will continue to work on the first floor while Vandervert finishes the remodel.


When the ground-level work is completed, Sterlings four-person business banking section will occupy about 1,150 square feet of floor space there, and its three-person consumer banking section will occupy about 1,900 square feet of space, says Lutz.


Action will add two employees when it moves to the second floor, she says.


Russell C. Page Architects PS, of Spokane, designed the project.


Sterling is calling the new office its Northpointe Branch and has five other retail branches in Spokane and one in Medical Lake. Action has downtown and North Side offices in Spokane, as well as an office in Spokane Valley, and one in Coeur dAlene.


Sterling has 136 branches overall in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, says Lutz. She says the bank has nearly $7 billion in assets and about $3.8 billion in deposits. In its Spokane County branches, Sterling has about $196 million in deposits, says Lutz.