Since its entry into Memphis, Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Partners has been slowly ramping up and investing in its presence here, a trend that has continued unabated in recent weeks.

The bank, among other things, struck a deal to bring a Starbucks store inside its Wolf River office at 1264 S. Germantown Road. It’s also gone on a hiring binge in recent weeks, and it’s filed a $2.3 million building permit for interior tenant work for its Memphis headquarters at 949 S. Shady Grove Road.

The new hires come from institutions like Iberiabank and Patriot Bank, among other local competitors. Among five new hires brought on since mid-March alone, Tony Neal, Chip Worthington and Rita Turner have all joined Pinnacle’s mortgage team in the Memphis market.

Neal brings 25 years of experience in mortgage lending to his role of senior vice president and mortgage adviser. He most recently worked as a loan officer for Community Bank in Southaven, and he’s based at Pinnacle’s North Mississippi mortgage office.

Worthington, meanwhile, has more than 37 years of experience and has joined Pinnacle as a mortgage underwriter. Previously with Magna Bank – which Pinnacle acquired in 2015 – as a senior lender and underwriter, he’s based at Pinnacle’s Memphis headquarters. And Turner, who brings 34 years of experience to Pinnacle, has joined the bank’s new mortgage office in Atoka as a mortgage adviser assistant.

She came to Pinnacle from Patriot Bank, where she was a mortgage loan processor and closer.

“We continue to be successful in attracting the best and most knowledgeable professionals in the market on every front,” said Lisa Reid, manager of the Pinnacle mortgage team in Memphis.

That expansion of the bank’s ranks continued through the end of March. Pinnacle also brought on Michelle Fracchia and Arthur Walden at its Memphis headquarters.

Fracchia came from Iberiabank, has 20 years of experience, and is a senior vice president and financial adviser for Pinnacle. Walden joined Pinnacle as a credit adviser for the firm’s commercial real estate group.

He was previously with Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co. as a realty investment analyst.

The filing of its building permit marks another step toward the relocation of its Memphis headquarters from Quail Hollow to Boyle Investment Co.’s Class A office building at 949 Shady Grove.

As The Daily News previously reported, Pinnacle has signage rights and is the construction lender for the six-story, 155,000-square-foot building, which a bank spokesman said was necessary because Pinnacle “needed to find a space that would give us some room to grow.”

That office is expected to open this year, and plans also call for features like two remote drive-through banking lanes and a drive-up ATM.

Pinnacle held a grand opening splash a few weeks ago for its hybrid Starbucks-bank branch location. The bank gave a little less than half of its 5,000 square feet there to Starbucks, which brings in a steady stream of foot traffic at a time when visits to bank branches are generally down, as technology options become more ubiquitous and banks look to try something different.