Chambers Bank relocates lone Benton County office to temporary space in Rogers
by February 15, 2017 2:24 pm 671 views
As planning continues for a new banking center in Northwest Arkansas, Danville-chartered Chambers Bank has relocated its lone Benton County office to a temporary location in Rogers.
Chambers vice president J.R. Meeks said the bank has agreed to a short-term lease at an office building at 600 S. 52nd St. The building is owned by Rogers developer Hunter Haynes. The location is taking the place of Chambers’ former branch (3,818 square feet) in Bentonville at 1100 S.E. Walton Blvd.
Meeks said the bank should break ground on an approximately 15,000-square-foot building before the end of March. The site is just south of the temporary location, a 2.38-acre lot north of Aloft hotel on South 52nd Street. Chambers acquired the land last year for $1.7 million ($16.40 per square foot). A general contractor has not been selected, Meeks said.
“We are still in the process of tweaking a few of the final design concepts and floor plans,” he said.
Chambers’ Bentonville branch is adjacent to Walmart Pickup Grocery and is owned by Wal-Mart Stores, which bought the branch in a sale-leaseback deal in January 2015 for $3.7 million. The lease term was for two years.
“We could’ve extended that, and Walmart was very cooperative in working with us, but we really didn’t know a good time period we’d need before being ready for the new building,” Meeks said. “This [temporary location] gets us in the area.”
Walmart spokeswoman Leslee Wright said the company has no immediate plans for the property. The building was built in 2006 for Parkway Bank, but it was closed early in 2009. Chambers leased the building from Parkway when it established its branch there in January 2010, but bought the building outright in December 2014 for $1.86 million, according to property records.
According to the most recent FDIC data available, Chambers has 18 offices in Arkansas with $703.5 million in assets. The bank’s lone Benton County branch had deposits of $20.8 million, which ranked 20th out of 27 banks doing business in Benton County.
The bank also has Northwest Arkansas locations in Elkins, Fayetteville, Johnson and Springdale (2).