Happy State Bank plans to change the Amarillo skyline.
J. Pat Hickman, the $490 million-asset bank's chairman and chief executive officer, said Wednesday that it has purchased 1.7 blocks downtown, where it plans to put up an $8 million building of at least seven stories.
The building would be the first multistory structure in the downtown area since Amarillo National Bank completed its 12-story Plaza Two in 1982.
"The response from the community is overwhelmingly positive," Mr. Hickman said. "We've actually opened some new accounts from it."
Beth Duke, executive director of Center City of Amarillo, a nonprofit group, said the city, with a population of 183,000, is developing a revitalization plan.
"Their particular location is just as you exit the interstate into downtown. It is going to make a very dramatic statement," she said.
Mr. Hickman said his bank considered purchasing a building but could not find one to fit its needs. In June, Happy pulled out of a contract to purchase the historic 10-story Fisk Building downtown.
"To upgrade that building to what we would have wanted would have cost the same as building a seven-story building. Plus, there wasn't enough parking," he said.
Happy, named for its hometown with a population of 615, opened a branch in downtown Amarillo about two years ago. The bank, which now has five branches in the Amarillo area, was able to staff the downtown one with employees hired from a PlainsCapital Bank branch that Wells Fargo & Co. acquired in 2004. Since then Happy's downtown Amarillo branch has grown to be the third-largest of its 12 branches, Mr. Hickman said.
The bank, which announced plans last week to put up the building, hopes to complete it in time for its 100th anniversary in 2008. It plans to move its downtown Amarillo branch into two or three floors of building. It may also put offices for American Church Trust, a Houston company Happy Bancshares Inc. is acquiring, on those floors. The rest of the building would be leased.
Though no contracts have been signed, Mr. Hickman said he hopes for some tasteful tenants.
"I personally think it is nuts that the beef capital of the universe doesn't have a five-star steak house," he said. "So I am on a personal crusade" to put one in the building.
