Daily Weather Report Powered By:

A crew from Sign Shop Illuminated of Colorado Springs installs a new Alpine Bank sign Friday on the north side of the Wells Fargo Tower at Cascade and Colorado avenues in downtown Colorado Springs. Alpine Bank of Glenwood Springs will open its first Springs branch on the building’s first floor at the end of October.

Crews from Sign Shop Illuminated of Colorado Springs install a new Alpine Bank sign Friday on the north side of the Wells Fargo Tower at Cascade and Colorado avenues in downtown Colorado Springs. Alpine Bank of Glenwood Springs will open its first Springs branch on the building’s first floor at the end of October.

A crew from Sign Shop Illuminated of Colorado Springs installs a new Alpine Bank sign Friday on the north side of the Wells Fargo Tower at Cascade and Colorado avenues in downtown Colorado Springs. Alpine Bank of Glenwood Springs will open its first Springs branch on the building’s first floor at the end of October.

Crews from Sign Shop Illuminated of Colorado Springs install a new Alpine Bank sign Friday on the north side of the Wells Fargo Tower at Cascade and Colorado avenues in downtown Colorado Springs. Alpine Bank of Glenwood Springs will open its first Springs branch on the building’s first floor at the end of October.

Alpine Bank, an independent, employee-owned bank headquartered in Glenwood Springs, is expanding to Colorado Springs with a high-profile entrance into the market.

Alpine’s first branch is targeted to open by the end of October at 90 S. Cascade Ave. in the downtown Wells Fargo Tower. It will occupy more than 7,000 square feet on the building’s first floor, where it will offer full-service consumer and business banking, said Matthew Hanson, Alpine’s Colorado Springs market president.

Founded in 1973 and with more than $6.1 billion in assets, Alpine sought to identify growth markets in recent years, Hanson said. It expanded to Denver in 2013 and Boulder in 2019; the Springs and Fort Collins, where a branch is expected to open in November, also were on Alpine’s list, he said.

Colorado Springs’ growth, vibrancy and desirability as a place to live — a recognition it’s received from U.S. News & World Report — were among factors that made it attractive, said Hanson, a Springs native and 2000 graduate of Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument.

The city’s quality of life, family friendly and community-oriented nature and independent streak also were appealing, he said.

“We’re not Denver, we’re not Boulder or Fort Collins — kind of an offshoot of that northern Front Range development,” Hanson said. “We are Colorado Springs. We are a thriving and really independent community down here that sits right in the middle of Colorado.”

Alpine will lease space previously occupied by Wells Fargo in the building that bears its name; Wells Fargo downsized its downtown banking operation after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago.

Alpine looked to buy space in downtown, though opportunities were few, Hanson said.

The Wells Fargo Tower’s location at Cascade and Colorado avenues is in the heart of the central business district and close to everything, from Colorado College to the north to redevelopment projects on downtown’s southwest side, he said.

Alpine might consider more branches in Colorado Springs, but first wants to see how its downtown location performs, Hanson said.

Alpine made its arrival known Thursday and Friday when 17-story cranes and crews from Sign Shop Illuminated of Colorado Springs hung new signs at the top of the Wells Fargo Tower’s north and east sides. The building is the city’s tallest — 15 stories of offices and a 16th-floor penthouse that houses building equipment.

Hanson said Alpine’s lease allowed it to put its signs on the building’s north and east sides, though the bank hasn’t purchased naming rights and the building will continue to carry the Wells Fargo Tower name.

Curious passersby watched Friday morning as the building’s north side “Wells Fargo” sign was removed and lowered slowly to the ground by crane.

Several minutes later, an Alpine Bank sign — composed of four, 100-pound sections that had been carried to the top of the building by freight elevator and assembled on the roof — was lifted by crane, affixed to the side of the building and bolted into place. A similar sign replacement took place Thursday on the building’s east side.

The meticulous operation was a six-person job carried out by two Sign Shop crew members working cranes, two on the roof and two more in a basket that dangled from one of the cranes along the side of the building.

“The guys who are actually in the hanging basket right now usually volunteer because they get to say they did something like this,” said Wayne Gwin, Sign Shop’s director of fabrication. “Being that this is the tallest building in our city, it’s kind of a big deal for us to do this.”

The new Alpine Bank signs, 9 feet by 11 feet, will be illuminated at night.

Business writer, Colorado Springs Gazette

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

The city of Colorado Springs is weighing whether to gate Old Stage Road to reduce late-night shooting across private property, vandalism, lighting fireworks, dumping and other illegal activity.