SunTrust sign logo tileAfter announcing that the only bank office in East Chattanooga would close next month, SunTrust Bank officials have reversed their decision and agreed to keep operating the Third Street SunTrust branch for the foreseeable future.
“After further evaluation, we have decided that it will remain open and we look forward to continue serving the community,” SunTrust spokesman Hugh Suhr said Monday.
The reversal came just a week after three members of the Chattanooga City Council publicly complained that the planned April 17 closing would remove a vital financial service in an under-banked part of the city.
“I probably had as many calls and concerns about the closing of this branch as any issue other than crime than I have had while on the City Council,” said Moses Freeman, who was elected to the council’s District 8 two years ago. “I’m just overjoyed that the bank would respond to the people of this community and agree to keep this important branch open. I’m truly speechless.”
Closing the Third Street SunTrust location would have made banking more difficult and expensive for seniors who didn’t have transportation and make such customers more vulnerable to predatory lenders, said City Councilman Yusuf Hakeem, who was at the bank branch Monday afternoon conducting his own banking business.
Hakeem, who threatened last week to get out his picket sign to protest the closing, said he was talking with bank officials and glad to see their reversal.
“This bank is needed in our community,” he said Monday.
The 25 branches SunTrust operates in metropolitan Chattanooga are the most of any local bank. But like most banks, the Atlanta-based SunTrust is trying to align its brick-and-mortar branches with changing consumer preferences for online banking and for changing geographic patterns of commerce.
Since 2009 when banks in the Chattanooga area operated a total of 179 branches, the total number of bank offices in metro Chattanooga has dropped by 9 percent to 161 branches and further reductions are expected in coming years.
The SunTrust branch at 2201 E. Third St. was built in 1981 as an office of American National Bank and has been expanded twice through its history.
Longtime Third Street SunTrust banker Deborah Maddox cheered when she learned the bank will remain open. She moved her funds from another financial institution to SunTrust in the early 1990s when she located in the Orchard Knob community.
“Other banks just do business. I like having a relationship,” said Maddox. “It’s a friendly bank. You’ve got people you know there.”
Brenda Tipton of Tipton Cranes, a rental business on North Hotzclaw a few blocks from the SunTrust branch, said she has been coming to the Third Street branch for the past 12 years.
“It’s convenient and helpful to have in this part of the city,” she said. “I hope they keep it open for many years to come.”
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com.