I'll say it once, and loudly for the people in the back: CLOSE THIS BANK.
I don't mean shut down the chain. I don't even mean shut down the branch and stop providing service to existing customers. I mean that, perhaps, it's time to reassess the need for a bank that takes up a quarter of a block on a main drag that's trying to actually draw some foot traffic.
This place has 35 parking spaces and a drive-up window monopolizing the surface lot that takes up roughly half of its property. Why? The bank itself is staffed by perhaps eight people at any given time. Since purchasing Premier Bank in 2018, the foot traffic through the branch has not only stagnated, but declined to a point that it doesn't appear they're actively courting new loans or deposits.
And, in the meantime, they're taking up half a block of Main Street with nothing but dark granite, a lone entrance and a parking lot driveway they decided to repave this year despite a lack of anything resembling traffic.
This bank's presence in its current configuration is a drain on downtown's foot traffic and an ugly brick-and-marble roadblock between Downtown Hillsboro and its future. Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 are no longer this neighborhood's hours, and this kind of premium space shouldn't be monopolized by a mid-century bunker keeping bankers' hours. read more
