First Security building new offices in Union House

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Pedestrians walking down Main Street may have noticed new work going on inside the Union House.

First Security Bank and Trust has announced that it is converting a portion of the commercial ground floor part of the building into new office space for the bank’s staff.

Along with First Security Bank’s primary location on Clark Street, the bank also operates two satellite offices in Charles City where employees conduct non-public-facing business such as managing the bank’s loan operations and credit department.

Once the new offices at Union House are ready, the bank will sell its current satellite properties and reorganize staff.

“Some of them are going to come back here and some of them here will go there,” said Kurt Herbrechtsmeyer, First Security chairman, speaking at the bank’s main office. “Our hope is early second quarter that we’ll be moving in.”

Like the current off-site locations, the new offices in the Union House won’t directly serve the public, instead serving as administrative space for bank staff.

The new offices will use about 4,700 square feet in the center of the building, leaving plenty of room for other businesses interested in moving into the ground floor location, Herbrechtsmeyer said.

The 45,000-square-foot building is owned by Four Keys LLC, a company that was formed to purchase and manage the assets of the former McQuillen Place apartment and commercial project after they were purchased through bankruptcy court. The upper two floors consist of 33 one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments.

Both Four Keys and First Security Bank and Trust are owned by Cedar Valley Bankshares Inc., a bank holding company controlled by essentially the same group of owners that owned First Security Bank and Trust when it was purchased by the holding company. Herbrechtsmeyer is manager of Four Keys.