Mt. Washington Bank’s planned new branch in Dorchester’s Codman Square will have much the same look and features as the bank’s existing Gallivan Boulevard branch (pictured) in Dorchester.
When Mt. Washington Bank first branched into Dorchester in 2003, bank officials say, they felt they were filling a void for the community. There were no other community banks in the Boston neighborhood, limiting banking options for area residents and businesses, according to Lauren Mann, director of marketing for Mt. Washington Bank.
The move has provided a successful niche for the bank, to the extent that Mt. Washington now is planning to open a second Dorchester location and contemplating further expansions there in the future.
Mt. Washington first opened in South Boston in 1893. Its headquarters remain in South Boston, but in a remarkably short span of time, bank officials say, the Dorchester community has become intertwined with the bank’s identity. The bank’s presence and history also has meaning to the residents of Dorchester, said Loan Officer Natasha Z. Boye.
“A bank is moving from South Boston to Dorchester. In their [residents’] mind it validates” a lessening of racial tension that has existed between the two Boston neighborhoods for many years, said Boye, who is a Dorchester resident herself. “It goes beyond just financial [significance and affects] social issues.”
In December, Boston’s Public Facilities Commission approved a proposal by Mt. Washington Bank to open a new branch in Codman Square on a city-owned piece of land. The 2,700-square-foot property is now earmarked for a new bank branch. The bank is expected to purchase the land for $100,000 sometime in the next few weeks. An existing building on the site will be razed to make way for new construction.
According to Mann, having a clear vision of how Mt. Washington Bank wants to address the needs of the community will help the institution grow in a way that is beneficial to itself and its surroundings.
“We want to be a community bank in Boston. Realizing there was a void of community banking in the city of Boston, we [saw] there was an opportunity in Dorchester,” said Mann. “Our success and the way we were received in Dorchester led us to keep looking. We want to continue to keep looking in Dorchester.”
The bank offers several loan options, many of which are geared toward low-income or minority groups such as the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s Soft Second loans, a first-time homebuyer program for low-income households in Massachusetts, and transit-oriented mortgage loans such as Take the “T” Home, a program administered by local transit authorities and MassHousing, said Boye. Boye said in addition to offering competitive rates, the bank also regularly hosts homebuying and financial education classes.
If everything stays on track, Mt. Washington Bank is expected to open its newest branch – a 4,000-square-foot facility – in the summer of 2007. The Codman Square branch is expected to cost $3.5 million. The new facility will include a drive-through window, customer and employee parking and a community room for area residents. The community room, which will be available for public meetings, will have a separate entrance from the bank.
Mann said the meeting space at the new branch will be a great asset to many local nonprofit groups and community organizations.
“We think it will be pretty busy. It will get use, put it that way,” she said.
According to Mann, Mt. Washington Bank has an understanding of the needs of local nonprofit organizations. Mt. Washington donates 10 percent of its annual profits to charitable groups, and employees donate thousand of volunteer hours to several of the causes backed by the bank.
‘Area of Interest’
The Department of Neighborhood Development oversees the development of city-owned property. It chose Mt. Washington’s proposal out the six plans submitted for developing the land.
“We had our eyes open. That was an area of interest for us,” said Mann. “We wanted a location where we could have ample customer parking and a drive-up. When this came up we were interested. They [ideal locations] are not a dime a dozen.”
Charlotte Golar Richie, director of the DND, said the city acquired the land through tax foreclosure. Once having housed an auto-body garage, the space sat unused for many years.
According to Richie, it is a prime location in the Codman Square business district, which is part of the reason so many people had their eye on it. But the bank’s proposal stood out.
“We got one proposal that was head and shoulders above the others,” said Richie.
Part of what set Mt. Washington apart from the competition is the bank’s record of investment in the community. Richie said the bank is known for its involvement with several local nonprofit organizations and called the institution “a bank with a social conscience.”
“It appears that’s what we have with Mt. Washington,” said Richie. “What we have is a wonderful win for the whole community.”
Richie also said the $3.5 million facility will add to the look of the area. She said such a pricy new construction is rare for the area and should attract attention.
“We know immediately what we will see is a vacant property now in use,” she said.
But it is the long-term effects of Mt. Washington’s presence that are expected to have a greater impact on the community.
“The community was strongly in favor of having a bank branch open there,” said Richie. “People who had to travel for banking services now have options.”
Around the same time Mt. Washington is slated to open, another local bank will appear on the local landscape, as well. One United, the nation’s largest black-owned bank, is also slated to open a new office in Dorchester. The two facilities will be about a mile a part from one another and will offer residents, community groups and businesses easy access to banking choices that did not exist in the past, said Richie.
