Wisconsin's Department of Commerce is assisting the expansion with a customized labortraining grant and enterprise development zone tax credit. Besides Firstar, the state and City Center, also involved in the public/private partnership are the Oshkosh Commercial Development Corp. and the city.

The expansion will support the bank's expanded commercial business line since its merger with US Bancorp this past February, according to Sherry Calbaum, Firstar senior vice president of commercial loan services. Calbaum says the building expansion takes into account Firstar's anticipated growth over the next five years with an increased sales workforce located across 24 Midwestern and Western states as well as its continued demand for commercial loans. The current loan center site on Osborn Avenue was first occupied in 1992 and has expanded twice since then, she says.

Firstar is a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based US Bancorp, which has assets of $165 billion and is the 8th largest financial services holding company in the US. The company operates 2,186 banking offices and provides banking, brokerage, insurance, investment, mortgage, trust and payment services products to consumers, businesses and institutions.