Umpqua Bank moving downtown branch out of former Sterling Savings building

Umpqua Bank will open a new downtown Spokane branch in the Crescent Building along Main Avenue as it moves from its retail branch in the former Sterling Bank building.

Umpqua is remodeling space that had been occupied by Bergman Luggage, across from River Park Square. It will open this fall.

Work started in mid-June on the $700,000 branch project, which will feature public conference spaces, a discover wall with interactive touch-screen technology, free Wi-Fi, and other elements, said Eve Callahan, Umpqua executive vice president of corporate communications.

Umpqua also has significant back-office operations on the upper floors of the Crescent Building.

Umpqua, based in Portland, bought Sterling in 2014 and rebranded the bank branch locations. And it now owns the 95,000-square-foot, four-story former Sterling headquarters at 111 N. Wall St. Umpqua’s plans for the site are being studied, Callahan said.

Today, floors above the current branch at Wall Street and Riverside Avenue hold a mix of Umpqua services and offices of other businesses, Callahan said. Umpqua is leasing 63,500 square feet in the Crescent Building.

“The bulk of our teams are in the Crescent Building,” Callahan said, adding the two buildings on the same block “are kind of interconnected.”

An Umpqua call center recently moved from near the Spokane International Airport into the Crescent. The bank has more than 400 employees working in that downtown building. Sterling also previously leased Crescent space for services such as auditing, compliance and loan support.

“We have several hundred associates in that block in downtown, and that’s not going to change. When we acquired Sterling, we said we would remain committed to Spokane and downtown, and we have,” Callahan said.

Umpqua Bank has branches across Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California and northern Nevada. The Sterling merger expanded Umpqua into Southern California, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon and Idaho.

Umpqua Holdings Corp., parent company of Umpqua Bank, reported a profit of $47.5 million for the first quarter of 2016.