What About All The Banks?
Peggy Levinson over at the D Home blog queried me a few days ago: since there are now more banks than churches or gas stations in Dallas the USA, what would we do if they had to shutter? You may recall I told you a year ago that Wachovia’s $451,000 monthly land lease at Preston and Mockingbird is one of the highest in the nation… wonder how much traffic they are losing with all that construction? (Now Wells Fargo pays the rent.) Anyhow, Preston Center is only getting busier what with the Staubach building and more development, including rumors that George Bush will office in that building (which have been denied) or in Trammell Crow’s redevelopment of the old Parkland Hospital. But read an article today saying that smaller and mid-size banks may actually weather this economic crisis and — you’ll never guess it — profit.
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Never understood Wachovia’s master plan what with building all those branches so quickly and literally overnight (shoddy construction comes to mind when a bank springs up in a few weeks).
I also never understood why Wachovia did tear downs of new buildings in locations where they built new branches. The former Big Bowl location on Preston Road in Frisco (near Stonebriar Mall) comes to mind. Big Bowl closed after maybe a year, in a brand spanking new building, and Wachovia tore it down to build one of their sleek glass and metal branches.
This certainly couldn’t have helped Wachovia’s precarious situation though much of it was due to bad mortgage investments, not over-bulding new branches.
One councilman (Ron Natinsky I think) said that his district has three working gas stations, because of all of the bank buys.
The Park Cities area has almost no gas stations. We do have literally dozens of banks in the Preston Center area alone.
One of the worst offenders is Century Bank, which built an incredibly ugly building at Douglas and Lovers. It’s tacky neon actually enhances the look.