Spokane-based Sterling Savings Bank plans to open a Boise business banking center early next year.

Sterling recently leased 3,500 square feet on the first floor of the Veltex building at Fifth and Main streets.  The bank will occupy the southwest corner of the building.

"We are modeling it after a branch in Portland, where a three-person teller line opens into a suite of office for business and private banking." said President David Bobbitt.

Tenant improvements are to begin by late this month, and take about three months to complete, Bobbitt said.  He said Sterling would employ up to 12 eventually at the new Boise office, after starting with six or seven.

Sterling will target middle-market business, he said.  Business-banking services that Sterling offers include loans, lines of credit and leases, as well as various deposit products and cash-management services.  The publicly traded savings bank has 134 offices and about $3.3 billion in total deposits.

The Boise branch opening will be a market entry of sorts for Sterling.  Of the bank's 11 Idaho offices, the closest to Boise is in Cascade.  However, Sterling owns Action Mortgage, which fields a southwest Boise office.

"Action is already there, and lots of (home) builders do business with them," Bobbitt said.  The Sterling business-banking center "will give us greater ability to handle their deposit accounts along with their real estate loans."

"We have several commercial borrowers we are already serving in the Boise area," he said.

Sterling, which acquired 10 KeyBank branches in northern and central Idaho in 1998, operates branches in Washington, Montana and Oregon - where it gained 50 offices in an acquisition that "puts us in eastern Oregon," Bobbitt said.