Paul Bass Photo
John Vigliotti walked to the bank as usual Tuesday to transfer money — only to learn from a friendly teller that he’ll soon need to drive to Woodbridge instead.
Vigliotti (pictured), a recently retired school administrator, has banked for 35 years at the corner building at Fountain Street and Central Avenue — now called First Niagara, previously known as New Haven Savings and then NewAlliance. The teller informed him Tuesday that the bank has decided to close the branch at the close of business on Friday, Jan. 30, as part of a companywide shuttering of 17 local branches across four states. First Niagara will transfer Vigliotti’s and other branch customers’ accounts to the nearest still-open branch — on Amity Road in Woodbridge.
Regular customers like Vigliotti were displeased when they learned the news. So was the neighborhood’s state representative, Pat Dillon, who called on the bank to reconsider the decision. So was city government’s economic development chief, Matthew Nemerson, who called the closing a sign of the times requiring a rethinking of how to boost neighborhood commercial districts.
The First Niagara announcement comes as Westville Village seeks to rebuild from the destruction of a central commercial property across the street from First Niagara, Delaney’s Restaurant & Tap Room, in an Aug. 25 fire.
First Niagara said it made the decision in response to changing times: People prefer the Internet to in-person banking.
The company is investing in mobile technology, which 200,000 of its customers use, and online banking, used by 500,000 customers, according to a press release.
“A majority of customers prefer online, mobile and ATMs for simple transactions – and their use of these technologies is growing,” the release quoted Executive Vice-President Mark Rendulic as saying.
That majority doesn’t include Vigliotti. He said he wishes the branch would remain open so he could walk there from his home.
“I’m old school,” he said. “I get into trouble on the Internet, hitting the wrong button.
“I’m a people person. They have a lot of nice people here.”
“It isn’t good for me,” Maurice Boyou (pictured), who lives in West Rock’s Brookside development, said upon hearing the news at a stop Tuesday morning to the branch ATM. “I have to go too far” to the other nearest branches, downtown and in Woodbridge, he said.
An employee of a nearby real-estate company was making one of two to three daily trips to the drive-in window. She said the company will look at changing its accounts to a branch nearer to the neighborhood, like START Community Bank on Whalley. “We have a fortune in this bank,” she said. “It’s not worth our while running around that often” to drive downtown or to Woodbridge.
Buffalo-based First Niagara took over NewAlliance in 2011; NewAlliance had previously taken over New Haven Savings, a longtime locally-owned mutual bank in 2003.
A letter sent to branch customers informed holders of safe deposit boxes that they have until Jan. 21 to come in and clear them out. If they wish to open safe deposit boxes at another branch, First Niagara will waive the first year’s rental fee “if you do so before February 13,” Area Manager Janice Yusza wrote in the letter.
“After the fire at Delaney’s, this could punch a hole in Westville Village,” Rep. Dillon wrote in a press release Tuesday calling on First Niagara — “which has been a positive partner in New Haven” — to reconsider the decision in the interest of keeping “jobs and deposits in the community.” She cited federal statistics showing First Niagara with 29 percent of the market share in the 06515 zip code, more than any other bank. She acknowledged that its market share was higher back when the bank was owned by New Haven Savings.
Dillon was also active in recent fights to change the federal government’s mind about closing Westville’s post office; so far that quest has succeeded.
Nemerson, the city’s development chief, said in an interview Tuesday that he’d be open to speaking to First Niagara regional President David Ring, to see if the bank branch closing might come under reconsideration.
He said the “bigger issue” for city planners is to adjust to an evolving business landscape in city neighborhoods.
“This may be another example of the internet and the changing way people do business — no different from the way newspapers changed,” Nemerson said. “We’re looking at a retail use [bank branches] that has left lights on during bank hours for 170 years. We have to rethink how we’re going to use those spaces” as they become vacant.
If our city's outdated zoning code didn't require developers to build so many expensive parking spaces for each square foot of apartment/office space, vacant sites like this one would be quickly snapped up and reused as mixed-use housing/retail.
Let the private market provide parking instead of using zoning to force developers to pass the costs along to consumers.