Wells Bank breaks ground
JIM FALL/DAILY FORUM
Mark Quick, left, branch manager of the new Wells Bank of Platte City, and Robert Barmann, the bank’s president and chief executive officer, were joined Tuesday by other Wells Bank officers in “officially” breaking ground for the financial institution’s new Maryville facility at 2920 S. Main. The new 3,600-square-foot facility will provide “four to five” new jobs when the facility opens in the spring, according to Barmann.
It was like a Maryville reunion of sorts Tuesday afternoon when officers of Wells Bank of Platte City joined city officials for official groundbreaking ceremonies for the bank’s new facility at 2920 S. Main St.
“It is always good to see a new investment in Maryville from someone from Maryville,” Nodaway County Economic Development Director Josh McKim said before the “official” shovels of dirt were ceremoniously tossed — as a full compliment of workmen poured footings for the 3,600-square-foot facility that will become Maryville’s newest financial institution.
“This will provide another lending opportunity for local projects and ultimately be very good for everybody in the area,” McKim said.
“These kinds of things are always good from an economic development standpoint, and it is even more encouraging to see that someone with local connections obviously sees a viable market opportunity to invest here,” he said.
Robert Barmann, Wells president and chief executive officer, who has 20 years of previous banking experience in Maryville, said the new Wells Bank will have the flexibility to provide a wide range of financial services to Maryville.
Barmann said Wells Bank represents a former family bank, which still retains the name, but is growing.
Maryville was to have been the company’s first financial institution outside of Platte County when its Maryville plans were announced, but the recent acquisition of the former Citizens Bank of Oregon, with offices in Oregon and Savannah, changed that, he said.
When completed “in the spring,” the Maryville facility will have “four to five employees, in addition to our local manager, Mark Quick,” and will give Wells Bank financial representation in the county seats of Andrew, Holt, Nodaway, and Platte counties in northwest Missouri, and in Kansas City, Barman said.
When introducing Wells’ chief financial officer Jim Baber and Brad Meyer, the bank’s chief operating officer, Barmann was quick to point out that “we are all Northwest graduates.”
Wells Bank has total assets of $129.6 million and total deposits of $108.9 million, according to information on the bank’s website.
Maryville City Manager Greg McDanel said the city was pleased to have been supportive in assisting in providing the necessary infrastructure and working with the developers.
“We are pleased to have been of help in bringing additional development to the site,” he said.
“I always thought this location had potential, but it just sort of sat here until the bank came along,” Maryville developer Bill Ingels said Tuesday.
He said the acquisition of 2.1 acres in abandoned U.S. 71 right-of-way from the Missouri Department of Transportation had been critical in attracting commercial development to the front portion of his 13-acre Fountain Park development.
“And where we go from here, nobody knows,” he said.
The Wells site is the center of the three new commercial locations Ingels is developing across South Main from Applebee’s, north of the Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing facility.
