COLUMBUS, Ohio—Telhio CU has purchased a former Huntington Bank branch here for $2.5 million, with plans to renovate and move in by early 2016.
The Huntington branch was focused on wealth-management services and had stopped serving retail bank customers a couple of years ago, according to Karen Daniels, SVP of member services at $530 million-asset Telhio.
The credit union was looking to move its 1,800-square-foot branch from a local mall to a new location, but Huntington wasn't ready to sell. By the end of the first quarter of 2014, the CU's commercial realtor learned that Huntington was ready to sell, and the sale was only recently finalized.
When it opens, the new Telhio branch will more than double the current location, growing from 1,800 square feet to more than 5,000.
"This will give us room for expansion to be better able to serve our membership there," said Daniels. "We will have our wealth management division out of that location as well. We're just now starting to really look and see how we're going to renovate that branch. We want to make it more of an open concept like the rest of our branches."
In addition to wealth management staff, some Telhio mortgage staff will be housed in that location, along with a retail center in the front of the branch and a conference room for community events.
Daniels said that because the deal just closed the timeline is still up in the air, as the CU looks into renovations and ending its current lease. For now, she said, the plan is that the new branch will open by early next year.
