Walker Center to get a bank

For about 75 years a bank occupied the ground floor of the Walker Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

Come August, a bank will once again do business in the nearly 100-year-old building.

Far West Bank was scheduled to announce today that it will relocate from its current Provo headquarters to the Walker Center and become the tower's ground-floor anchor tenant, occupying 7,500 square feet.

The Far West name will appear on the outside of the building, which has been on the corner of 200 South and Main Street since 1911.

Far West Bank, which recently was acquired by AmericanWest Bank in a $150 million deal, will have 18 branches in Utah after the bank opens at the Walker Center location on Aug. 1.

"It will be our flagship office in Utah," said Robert Daugherty, president and chief executive of AmericanWest Bank, based in Spokane, Wash. "The Walker Center becomes our springboard to launch downtown. We believe that we bring some real value to the Far West franchise by bringing the bank to downtown Main Street."

The downtown Far West location will employ about 15 people.

W. James Tozer, one of the building's co-owners, calls the Walker Center a landmark building, originally designed as a bank. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 2006.

"My dream was to get a bank back in here," Tozer said. "And now we've got one."

At the time it was built, the Walker Center was the tallest building between Chicago and San Francisco and was the headquarters of Walker Bank. A bank remained at the location continuously into the 1980s. For years, the flashing weather-forecast tower atop the building has been a landmark of the Salt Lake City skyline.

But over time the building fell into disrepair. Lease rates fell to $12 a square foot. The building had no air conditioning, and men's and women's bathrooms were located on different floors.

As a $10 million renovation to the building nears completion this summer, the Walker Center is taking a step back toward its former grandeur. The changes will feature a two-story atrium, all new mechanical and electrical systems, and a gym.

Skip Greene, chief executive of Spectrum Engineering, said his firm currently occupies four floors in the Walker Center. Spectrum has been in the building since 1996.