T-L Photos/GAGE VOTA Belmont County residents and Main Street Bank employees show up to support Main Street Bank’s first Belmont County location’s grand opening as Main Street Bank Chairman, President and CEO Mark Witmer cuts the ribbon officially marking its grand opening.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Main Street Bank has opened its first Belmont County location at 107 Plaza Drive, Suite A, at Plaza West in St. Clairsville.

The new office’s hours will be Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m and Saturday from 9 a.m.-noon. It will provide a full range of consumer and commercial banking products and services, as well as convenient online and mobile banking options tailored to customer preferences.

“We are excited for the opportunity to grow in St. Clairsville and the surrounding communities while also expanding our presence into Belmont County,” Main Street Bank chairman, president and chief executive officer Mark Witmer said. “We are here to serve the many small to mid-size businesses seeking a community bank that delivers personalized attention, competitive pricing, and local decision-making.”

He added that Main Street Bank likes having locations in small- to medium-sized towns and believes that it offers a service that’s at a much higher level than other banks can offer. Witmer believes communities like St Clairsville really fit the model and what Main Street likes to do as a bank.

Main Street Bank has locations from Worcester, Ohio, to Wheeling and Moundsville and everywhere in between.

“We look forward to continuing to open branches in other communities,” he said.

Main Street Bank market development manager Matt Porter said he is focused on building lasting relations with the Belmont County community as well as developing personalized financial solutions to its residents. He added that his role will be to go out and meet the community and said that he looks forward to doing that.

“It’s a great community with great people, and I’m excited,” Porter said. “As far as banking, I don’t have a lot of experience in banking, but like anything, it comes down to people and having a great relationship with people and being trustworthy and doing the right things.”

Porter is a new addition to Main Street Bank only being with the company for four months.

He said that in a world where banking is going more digital, he believes that Main Street Bank understands that it is still important to foster a relationship with its customers within the community.

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Donnie Sheller said that the new bank will be the company’s 20th location.

Main Street Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Main Street Financial Services, Corp., operating 20 full-service banking locations throughout north central Ohio and West Virginia.

“As a community bank, we’re always looking to grow, and we identified St. Clairsville and Belmont County as one of those wonderful opportunities who have a very wonderful history and we wanted to be a part of that,” Sheller said. “We already had a significant amount of customers that banked in Wheeling or some of the other towns, but lived in Belmont County. So for those people, we felt like it would be much more convenient for them to come and bank with us.”

He added that, when entering a new community, the bank looks forward to providing a service to the people of the community.

“We’re a full-service bank. We have all different types of loans. We have top-of-the-market deposit rates, lenders available in the branch, unlike maybe some of the bigger branches. So we’re here to provide the very best service possible.”

Director St. Clairsville Area Chamber of Commerce Lisa Kindler said that she is very excited to have Main Street Bank’s first branch in Belmont County to be located in St. Clairsville.