EAU CLAIRE, Wis. - Recalling the days when a larger credit union helped his then smaller operation to get off the ground, Royal Credit Union is returning the favor now that it has grown.
After moving two departments to a central downtown location three years ago, the $909-million Royal Credit Union's Graham Riverside office was largely vacant. RCU continued to have a branch at the site, but shut it down at the end of 2007. Now, just seven months later, another local credit union will be moving in to establish its new headquarters as the $7.5-million MET Credit Union takes over the office.
MET CU moving into RCU's old office is not simply a case of a building owner needing a tenant. RCU CEO Charlie Grossklaus insisted that he likely would not have leased or sold the structure to a bank. In fact, Grossklaus said he actually targeted other credit unions during the search for a tenant, having approached MET about the building on a couple of occasions.
"We have a philosophy that (CUs) need each other, we need to work with each other," Grossklaus said, noting that RCU received help in its early years from another CU in the community. "I've never forgotten that."
"RCU is very good to the credit union industry and very good to the community," said Troy Moen, CEO of MET CU. "(Although) in all fairness, we are a lot smaller than some of their competitors."
That size likely made MET an ideal tenant for the Graham Riverside office as the CU does not pose a serious threat to RCU and its 112,000-strong membership. Originally a teachers and municipal employees CU, MET, which was established in 1936 and has about 2,000 members now, became community chartered last year. Now open to the general public in three northwest Wisconsin counties, MET needed to find a better location in the downtown Eau Claire area.
"Continued growth is our number-one goal and we had kind of reached a plateau with our current membership," said Moen, pointing to the rate of CU mergers in recent years. "To grow further we had to expand beyond our existing charter. The mandate is to grow or you won't be there in the future."
Grossklaus is a former downtown business association chairman, and he said that MET's move will help the city center flourish. The conditions on MET's lease allows for it to ease into a payment plan and the new tenant retains the option to purchase the building until 2013. Moen has no immediate plans to buy the office, and actually turned down Grossklaus's first offer because there was no leasing option. The MET chief pointed out that the credit union had been based out of the homes of its presidents as recently as 14 years ago. Purchasing the multi-story structure may be out of the question now, but Moen would consider such a move in the future.
"We would like to do that but that is all dependent on meeting our growth plan which this office will allows us to do," he said.(c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.http://www.cujournal.com/ http://www.sourcemedia.com/
