photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The headquarters of TriCentury Bank is shown in De Soto on Nov. 16, 2021.

The number of $100 million success stories that wend their way through Simpson — the north central Kansas town of 82 people — are relatively rare. But Lawrence soon will see one — and get a new bank in the process.

Johnson County-based TriCentury Bank has announced plans to open its first Lawrence location, taking over a vacant bank building at Bob Billings Parkway and Kasold Drive.

But what does that have to do with Simpson? It wasn’t that long ago that TriCentury was based in tiny Simpson and had a distinction that isn’t the most sought after in the banking industry.

“We were one of the smallest banks in the nation at that point,” said Travis Hicks, co-chairman and CEO of TriCentury. “We only had a million dollars in loans.”

Today, TriCentury has $105 million in loans, while assets have grown from $4 million to $135 million. All that growth has happened since 2014, when Hicks partnered with Lindsay Olsen, who had owned the Simpson bank since the late 1990s.

It was at that time that the bank moved its headquarters and charter out of Simpson and into the state’s richest county, Johnson County in suburban Kansas City. But even that isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. TriCentury isn’t headquartered in the traditional Johnson County power centers of Overland Park, Lenexa or Olathe.

Rather, it is based in nearby De Soto, a town of about 6,000 people along Kansas Highway 10 just east of the Douglas County border. Its other location is in Spring Hill in southern Johnson County. Lawrence is the biggest town the bank will have a location in, and it didn’t take much thought for Hicks to know he wanted a location in the city.

Hicks already is a Lawrence resident, and has been for years. He previously worked as an executive for Commercial Federal in the early 2000s, and then was at Lawrence-based Great American Bank for several years before undertaking the TriCentury project.

“Lawrence has always been a strong growth market, and when you’re a bank, you want to be part of those types of markets,” Hicks said.

It also was easy to convince Olsen to make Lawrence the bank’s next expansion target. Olsen worked in the Lawrence banking industry in the 1980s with Columbia Savings, Hicks said.

The decision to move into Lawrence now, though, was largely dictated by a real estate opportunity. Central Bank of the Midwest decided to close its branch at the northeast corner of Bob Billings Parkway and Kasold Drive — the one next to the Orchards Corner shopping center — and Hicks thought that would be a great location for TriCentury.

“I think that location is as good as it gets,” Hicks said.

The bank bills itself as a community bank, which means it will offer a host of retail banking products such as checking and savings accounts and online banking options, Hicks said. But when it comes to the lending side, unlike some community banks, it doesn’t put all of its focus on residential home loans. Instead, the bank does little in the category of traditional home loans but really focuses on making loans to businesses, real estate investors and other commercial enterprises.

“We deal with a lot of investment property, a lot of real estate investments,” Hicks said. “I just feel like we have to do what we know and do it as well as anybody.”

The strategy has paid off in Johnson County, which has seen its pace of commercial development remain strong for decades. While TriCentury is no longer one of the smallest banks in the nation, it is still small compared with the big national banks, and Hicks said that has been an advantage in Johnson County and likely would be in Lawrence too.

“We plan on being that community bank that will deliver the service that our clients expect,” Hicks said. “A big part of our success is being able to respond to our clients in a really timely way.”

Hicks said TriCentury plans to open its Lawrence location next month. It will host a grand opening ceremony and open house from 4 to 7 p.m. on Dec. 9 at the bank, 1444 Kasold Drive.