D.L. Evans Bank opens June 15 in the Alexander Building

D.L Evans Bank will open its new downtown Boise regional headquarters office and branch in the nearly century-old Alexander Building June 15.

“It’s a great opportunity to plant our flag in downtown Boise and have a presence that we can control,” said John V. Evans III, the bank’s Boise-based executive vice president. Half of the Burley-based bank’s branches are in Boise.

D.L. Evans has been using 5,000 square feet of leased space at Ninth and Idaho streets for its Boise administrative office and downtown branch. The new space, purchased in January, is 20,000 square feet. Zions Bank used the space from June 2001 until moving into the Eighth and Main tower in January 2014.

For now, D.L. Evans will just use the 8,000-square-foot ground floor for its downtown branch at the south end of the building and offices for the eight-person administrative staff at the north end. The Alexander Building’s prior owners will continue to lease the second floor for at least two more years, Evans said.

Evans expects to either lease out the third floor or hire an additional half dozen commercial lenders and establish a commercial lending center on the top floor. D.L. Evans now has 15 commercial lenders scattered among its 13 Treasure Valley branches, but Evans believes the bank can be a player in the state’s business hub.

“Boise is the business center in Idaho,” Evans said. “We plan to grow in Idaho. We are the largest community bank in Idaho. (Downtown) is a very competitive environment.”

D.L. Evans has 27 branches in the southern half of Idaho; its most recent addition in Fruitland opened June 24. Ingrained in southern Idaho since its founding in Albion in 1904, D.L. Evans did not arrive in Boise until opening its State Street branch in 2000.

D.L. Evans is the largest bank headquartered in Idaho, with $1.2 billion in assets as of the end of 2014. The bank ranked seventh among all banks in both the Boise market and in the state of Idaho in assets in the middle of 2014, based on Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data that includes its 2014 acquisition of Idaho Banking Co. with its four branches.