About 90 NexTier Bank employees who are working at the company's operations center on Pittsburgh Road in Butler Township will move into the third floor of the Morgan Center building sometime in early 2019, the company said Wednesday.

The announcement came alongside NexTier's confirmation that it had completed the purchase of Morgan Center from the family whose name the building bears. NexTier declined Wednesday to disclose the purchase price.

NexTier CEO Clem Rosenberger said in a brief news release that the bank intends to renovate the building's third floor to accommodate its growing operations center.

“Our operations center is at full capacity,” Rosenberger said. “The Morgan Center building is in the heart of our Southwestern Pennsylvania market and a great space for our employees.”

Maria Amoruso, NexTier's chief marketing officer, said in an interview that about 90 employees work in the bank's operations center, which provides “back office” services like check processing, marketing, account management and some lending-side services as well.

Currently that work is done in an office building on Pittsburgh Road, but Amoruso said NexTier intends to renovate the Morgan Center's third floor — which is vacant — to create office space for an expanded operations center. The company hasn't yet decided what will be done with its current operations center after it is vacated.

According to information on the website for Morgan Management Co., Morgan Center's third floor is 14,734 square feet.

“It's a lot of cosmetic work,” Amoruso said of the nature of the planned renovations, which NexTier officials expect to begin later this year. “It's a wonderful building, and we're very pleased to have it.”

Amoruso said that NexTier also plans to change signs on the outside of Morgan Center to read “NexTier Bank.” That change is expected to come alongside the interior renovations and be complete by the end of this year.

Currently, the bank and one other tenant occupy Morgan Center's 13,779-square-foot first floor, which may not be included in the renovations.

“We may not do any renovations (to the first floor) at all,” Amoruso said. “It's a beautiful space as it is.”

She said NexTier officials are excited to bring their operations center to downtown, and to give employees better workday access to Main Street shops and eateries.

“We think this is a great opportunity for the bank and for the community,” Amoruso said. “We're looking forward to our employees being there and being out in the community ... and doing all those things we weren't able to do before.”

She said there were no immediate plans to add employees to NexTier's operations center, but expects the business to continue its growth and require additional workers over the next five years.

Morgan Center has been a fixture on the Diamond since 1978, after the late businessman Bill Morgan began construction on the building in 1976. It replaced the Nixon Hotel on the southern side of Diamond Park.

According to the management company's website, the building's second and fourth floors are broken up into suites and office space. The building also houses a district office for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd.