12.1.22 - After 23 years away, Chase is back in Buffalo banking – in a big way
' You would never guess the home of Chase's new location on Transit Road in Amherst used to be a KFC and Taco Bell.
The building in Eastview Plaza has been transformed into a sleek-looking branch, and marks Chase's return to retail banking in a region where the brand has been absent since 1999.
The branch opened for business on Tuesday. Chase – the retail and commercial banking business of JP Morgan Chase – is returning to the Buffalo market in a significant way. Bank officials have announced six locations in the region, and are finalizing plans for two additional locations, for a total of eight.
That's a lot of new branches at a time when many other banks are cutting back their networks.
"We get that all the time: 'Everybody else is closing. How are you opening branches? Everybody's going digital,' " said Robert J. Recla, vice president and regional support lead for Chase's New York North and Connecticut region. "We understand that. We want to be where our customers are.
"At the same time, we want to allow them to bank when, where and how. We see the branches as advice centers, across the entire spectrum of customer segments."
Bank branches, and how customers use them, have changed dramatically since the Chase name exited the local market more than two decades ago. Branches are typically smaller, with so many routine transactions handled online, instead. The new Chase branch on Transit has just two teller windows inside.
Chase is re-entering the market through a mix of property types. Only one of the six locations – at Broadway and Penora Street in Depew – used to be a bank branch, with First Niagara Bank.
Chase refurbished a former insurance office at Amherst and Bridgeman streets in Buffalo. At Sheridan and Alberta drives in Amherst, the bank is moving into a new retail development.
Two other locations, at Crossroads Centre in Orchard Park and Southwestern Boulevard and McKinley Parkway in Hamburg, will be newly built branches. '