New Fifth Third Bank location quietly opens
Dec 19, 2012 (Menafn - Messenger-Inquirer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --After less than five months of construction, the Fifth Third Bank location at Fifth and Frederica streets opened for business Monday in what a bank official called a "very soft opening" without advance notice.
A grand opening celebration for Owensboro's newest banking center will be in mid-January, said Shelley Kirk, the bank's marketing director, although no firm date for the event has been set.
The soft opening Monday allowed the bank to make sure everything was in order.
"Everything is going really well," Kirk said Tuesday.
Kirk said crews were tweaking the building as late as Friday while furniture and equipment were being moved in.
The groundbreaking for the building was held on the last day of July, with Mayor Ron Payne and bank officials participating. The single-story, 5,400-square-foot building fronts Frederica Street. The Fifth Third branch across the street at 531 Frederica St. was relocated to the new building, which is managed by Krista Niehaus, a district manager.
The Fifth Third Bank project is counted as part of 89 million in new, private investments in downtown Owensboro, local economic development officials said earlier this year.
The 1.576-acre corner lot where the new bank sits is the former Stacy Chrysler-Jeep location. The building cost about 1 million to construct. The lot is within the city's extended historic downtown core "overlay district" and had to meet design standards that, among other things, encourage preservation of buildings. The bank gained approval for two of three variance requests from the Owensboro-Daviess County Historic Preservation Board.
The bank has drive-through lanes near Frederica Street on the far north end, a few feet from West Fifth Street. It will have entrances off Frederica and West Fifth streets and large landscaped areas.
Steve Vied, 691-7297, svied@messenger-inquirer.com
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