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Merger to close 105 bank branches
The Wachovia and SouthTrust branches - 17 in Tampa Bay - will be shuttered by June.
By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published March 2, 2005
Wachovia Corp. will close 105 bank branches around Florida, including 17 in Tampa Bay, when the state's second-largest bank finally consolidates its operation with SouthTrust Corp., the company it merged with last summer.
The bank closings, to be completed by June, will involve a mix of Wachovia and SouthTrust branches. Wachovia said branch employees will keep their positions, but the company still plans to wring 4,300 jobs out of its combined operations.
Details of where those jobs would come from were not made available, but Florida and Georgia have long been expected to bear the brunt of the cost of merging the two banks because those states have the greatest overlap.
The job loss is just what Wachovia officials predicted when the $14.3-billion merger was announced last June, and the company continues to say the staff reduction will be managed through attrition.
"Our goal is to find them comparable positions in other locations," said Wachovia spokesman Kevin Bezner.
"One of our goals is, when possible, to keep them in locations pretty close to the ones they've been working at."
Wachovia currently employs 1,598 employees in the Tampa Bay area.
Fliers are being sent this week to customers affected by the branch closings and will include directions to the next closest branch, along with a list of other nearby locations.
Decisions on which centers to close were based on study of customer volume, traffic patterns and customer convenience.
"The goal here was to provide a financial center to customers that they wanted. From our studies, what we learned is that the centers that we are keeping are the ones that customers want us to keep," said Bezner. "Our aim is to be precisely where our customers want us to be."
The June consolidation will formally make Wachovia the second-largest bank in Florida, just 1 percentage point behind Bank of America's 20 percent of the market. Locally, Wachovia has 22 percent of the market share. When the consolidation is complete, Wachovia will have 747 branches in Florida, with 94 of them in Tampa Bay.
BANK BRANCHES TO BE SHUTTERED
The following Wachovia branches will close:
110 W Bloomingdale Ave., Brandon
510 Oakfield Drive, Brandon
2140 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd., Clearwater
28163 U.S. 19 N, Clearwater
7600 U.S. 19 N, Pinellas Park
8851 U.S. 19 N, Pinellas Park
6700 66th St. N, Pinellas Park
5144 E Busch Blvd., Tampa
7919 Gunn Highway, Tampa
The following SouthTrust branches will close:
201 E Kennedy Blvd., Tampa
4240 W Kennedy Blvd., Tampa
13175 Walsingham Road, Largo
14802 N Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa
34650 U.S. 19 N, Palm Harbor
19440 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa
4501 Mainlands Blvd., Pinellas Park
9400 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N, St. Petersburg
[Last modified March 2, 2005, 00:46:17]
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