Bank building transforms into Elko Business Center | Local

Great Basin Bank and Nevada State Bank inhabited the large bank building on the corner of Fifth and Railroad streets for many years. The building was built in 1925 as a bank, according to local historian Jan Petersen. Later, it was inhabited by the Bakery Saloon. It also held the Elko Clinic when it was first organized.

New owners Dusty Shipp and Juanita Gaeta have carved out a new vision for the cornerstone giant, calling it the Elko Business Center.

Shipp and Gaeta purchased the building in September. The Gaeta Real Estate Group owns eXp Realty, which officially opened upstairs in November. Other businesses that have moved into the center include the Luke Fitzgerald Group, Shipp Group, Anderson Group, Jones-Laughter Team, Chastity Harrell and the Backherms Group.

“EXp Realty is the fastest growing Realty company in the U.S. and currently the fourth largest,” Gaeta said. “They are a national and global real estate company. EXp Realty has cutting edge technology and agents pride themselves in being the local experts making the selling and buying process as smooth as possible.”

“We heard about this new company that is Cloud based,” Gaeta said about eXp. “When it comes to submitting our paperwork, it’s a little more modernized.”

“They allow their agents to own stock in the company,” Gaeta said. “We heard about the opportunity and jumped on it.”

EXp typically does not run brick and mortar businesses, but Gaeta felt a location was necessary in a small community like Elko. She is a licensed broker.

“I think there is a balance to not lose the historic value of the building,” Shipp said. “But, obviously, we want to bring some fresh, new updated look to it. We have done some cosmetic stuff inside, paint, flooring, lighting. We have kind of let each team individualize their space so they all have a different feel as you enter into their suite.”

“As the building gets fuller it will be more multi-purpose,” Shipp said. “That’s why we called it the Elko Business Center because we are going to have a hub of businesses that revolve around real estate from mortgage, title and insurance. The goal is that people can come here and have all of their needs met.”

“We are going to have lots of fun events going on here,” said Elko Business Center office manager Emma Campbell. “We also had some training here from Gerber Law.”

The meeting room upstairs and part of downstairs can be rented out for events.

“We did the bridal fair,” Campbell said.

“A couple hundred people came in here,” Shipp said. “It was huge.”

In the main entrance on Fifth Street, Shipp and Gaeta have installed a metal sculpture of a miner as a tribute to the area’s main economic base. It was created by Pedro Zacarias.

“Being that it’s (building) in the heart of Elko, people love it,” Gaeta said. “We have grown so quickly and have so much support.”

“There is a lot of activity and new construction,” Gaeta said about the real estate market. “We are getting so many people moving from out-of-state, people retiring. There is always something going on in people’s lives and that allows us to serve them and help them make the changes they need.”

2018 walking tour of downtown Elko: