As bigger banks close branches in Middle Georgia, others come to take their place

For the second time this month, a bank announced plans to open a full-service branch in a former bank branch.

This comes a year after at least two large banks closed some branches in Bibb County.

CenterState Bank has bought the former Bank of America building at 4040 Vineville Ave., said Community President Mark Stevens.

“We are going to rebrand it,” Stevens said. “We could move in now, but we are going to go in and build a conference room in it and bring it up to date, do some modifications to the outside and heavy landscaping to dress it up.”

Renovations are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019. The work is being done by Macon-based Piedmont Construction Group and Azar Walsh Architects.

The 4,000-square-foot building on 1.4 acres has three drive-thru lanes, one of them an ATM lane. The Florida-based bank expects to hire about five people for the branch.

Stevens said the bank considered constructing a new building or trying to find an existing location “that was in a desirable place with lots of traffic.”

“So we felt like it would be financially responsible to buy something and renovate it and brand it to our brand and spend about half of what it would cost to build something,” he said. “That’s acceptable if you find something in the right location. And we feel like that is the right location.”

The company could be adding one or two more branches in Middle Georgia in the future, he said.

CenterState first came into Middle Georgia in fall 2016 when it opened a commercial lending office downtown. This will be its first full-service banking office in Middle Georgia.

Its parent company merged this spring with West Point-based Charter Financial Corp., and that transaction is expected to be completed in October. Charter has about 20 branches but none in Middle Georgia, Stevens said.

Also, in 2016, Atlanta-based Fidelity Bank opened a lending office in a former SunTrust Bank branch on Hartley Bridge Road, and in February made that a full-service branch. Fidelity Bank also plans to open after the first of the year a full-service branch at 3201 Vineville Ave., also a former SunTrust Bank branch, as reported by The Telegraph earlier this month.

There are several reasons banks close branches, said David Oliver, senior vice president of communications and marketing for the Georgia Bankers Association.

“What I think is the larger institutions that already have a market presence will examine their needs and their consumer patterns, usage patterns in those locations and make their best effort to optimize the branch network that they have in a particular market,” Oliver said. “If they determine they’ve got the market presence and the coverage in the marketplace they need, they may make the decision to close those branches that are not getting enough traffic.”

It’s similar to the reason retailers and grocery stores close stores in one location and open in another area.

“Then you’ve got banks like Fidelity Bank and CenterState Bank that obviously see some opportunity in the marketplace where they either don’t have a location to begin with or want to expand their coverage,” Oliver said.

As of last year, banks nationwide closed more than 10,000 branches since the recession, according to The Economist.

In Georgia, there are 12 banking institutions with 43 branches in Bibb County as of June 30, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s website. SunTrust has six branches, and Bank of America has five. As of June 30, 2006, there were 10 banks with 52 branches. SunTrust had 12 branches then and Bank of America had eight.