Central State Bank closes McGregor branch
Central State Bank recently announced that it is permanently closing its McGregor branch, located at 214 Main St., and merging it with the nearby Marquette branch.
City officials courting other banks to fill the void
By Audrey Posten, Times-Register
Health, safety and security concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have forced the temporary closure of Central State Bank’s (CSB) location in downtown McGregor since this spring, but now the closure has been made permanent. In a letter to the McGregor community and CSB customers, bank president and CEO Greg Johnson said the McGregor and Marquette branches are merging—a move CSB believes is in the best interest of customers.
“This year has posed unprecedented challenges and caused adaptation in daily life in a way that none of us ever could have imagined. The challenges posed by COVID and its aftermath has given us at Central State Bank the opportunity to look at the services we provide and allowed us to consider how we can continue to provide those services without interruption in a time when face-to-face interaction is not possible,” Johnson stated. “We have been focused on dealing with the immediate challenges and on making sure that we come out of this pandemic better equipped to provide excellent service no matter what the future holds.”
This prompted CSB to invest heavily in technology to upgrade its core operating system as well as its internet and mobile banking platforms. This allows the bank to serve customers at any time, regardless of location.
Johnson said this process led to more in-depth discussions about the challenges posed by the McGregor branch, which is located at 214 Main St., in a building constructed in 1886. For many years, the building served as several law offices, and was once the home of State Bank of McGregor.
While its location and set-up have long posed safety and security challenges, Johnson said the “security, health and safety upgrades that were needed to combat COVID and accommodate our enhanced technology investment would have required large upgrades to the facility that were neither feasible nor cost effective.”
“These challenges, combined with the inability to secure staff members who wanted to work part-time, led us to conclude the merger of the Marquette and McGregor branches is in the best interests of our customers,” he added.
The decision was made with an eye toward CSB’s resources in the area. Johnson said the bank’s Marquette branch is conveniently located 1.6 miles away, provides longer service hours and is fully staffed with members who can handle all customers’ banking needs. The most recent addition in Marquette is a full-time commercial/ag lender.
“We made the conscious decision to add staff members to the Marquette location to ensure that we have both the staff and the expertise to provide the full-service experience our customers are looking for,” said Johnson.
He also stressed that CSB remains committed to investing in the McGregor community, and CSB team members will remain active.
“Even when our McGregor location was temporarily closed, we were honored to be able to assist multiple Main Street McGregor businesses with securing funding through the Paycheck Protection Program that has allowed them to continue to weather the COVID storm,” Johnson stated, “and we will continue that commitment going forward. We will continue to invest both our time and resources into our customer base in McGregor.”
The city of McGregor isn’t on board, however. Mayor Lyle Troester has been vocal in his displeasure, stating, in his own letter to Johnson, that the action was “a low blow to our businesses, our citizens and our entire banking environment.”
“I’m disgusted,” he added at the city’s Dec. 16 council meeting. “Any time I was in the bank, you always saw someone in there.”
Troester was also upset at CSB’s decision to sell the historic banking cage from the building. He said there was no notice to city hall, or to the community’s historic organizations or museum, that the structure was available.
“This action is totally without respect to our community,” he stated. “We have a museum that’s very active and looking to expand, and maybe we wanted to put it in there.”
Troester and other city officials are now actively courting other banks, and they’ve encouraged other community members to do the same. He’s specifically targeted Peoples State Bank, which is headquartered in neighboring Prairie du Chien, Wis., but now has two Iowa locations in Harpers Ferry and Guttenberg.
City administrator Lynette McManus said she’s also reached out to Interstate Federal Savings and Loan in McGregor.
“They are thinking about it,” she said. “They’d have to change so they could be more than savings and loan.”
“We don’t need a huge building and 10 people working there,” Troester explained. “We just need a bank. It would be good for our town.”
