Sitting behind a mahogany desk, a friendly receptionist

greets those who walk through Northern Trust Bank’s front doors just off congested

U.S. 41 in Bonita Springs. Rich carpeting and gold and bronze sconces accent

ornate desks, chairs and other furnishings, creating a comfortable, elegant

atmosphere. Antiques are so prominent throughout the building that the office

has its own guide, which offers information on pieces such as a bronze-and-onyx

table once owned by Gen. William T. Sherman and a chandelier from Versailles

made of Baccarat crystal and Dora bronze. It’s like walking into the lobby of a

boutique hotel, where you rarely notice the money changing hands. Even the

entrance has an extra touch, with leaded glass in wooden doors from an old

English haberdashery on Madison Avenue in New York.

It’s no coincidence that the décor of the office, surrounded

by communities boasting million-dollar homes, exudes wealth. In fact, to

determine how the building should be decorated, Northern Trust’s internal

design team scoured the area before the office was built six years ago. That

was before much of Bonita Springs’ growth, including the development of The

Promenade, an upscale shopping center across the street, but the design team

figured out where the area was headed. The bank’s look is now perfect for the

area it serves.

“The architecture and design of our lobby invites people to

be comfortable here,” says Thomas A. Bringardner, president of the Bonita

Springs office for three years and a banker with Northern Trust for 11 years.

“We don’t use a standard footprint for our buildings.”

Local links

From Sanibel Island to Lehigh Acres to Immokalee, bankers in

Southwest Florida attempt to link themselves with the community. The area’s

population explosion and increasing wealth have provided fertile ground for

banks. The Southwest Florida market has had more new bank charters approved in

the last three years than any other market in Florida, leaving Lee and Collier

counties with more than 40 different bank holding companies boasting more than

150 locations. That number doesn’t include financial service companies, which

compete to manage assets.

Some institutions, like Community Bank of Naples, Edison

National Bank and Florida Gulf Bank, play up the local angle in their names.

Locally owned, these banks claim to provide clients a personal relationship

that gigantic national banks can’t match. Meanwhile, national and regional

banks such as Birmingham, Ala.-based SunTrust, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of

America, Birmingham-based Colonial Bank and Cincinnati, Ohio-based Fifth Third

Bank tout their expertise, multiple locations and deep resources—and cement the

local connection by volunteering in the community and investing in local

organizations.

Although growth has been fantastic, some bankers see room in

the market for more. The newest entry is Florida Gulf Bank, founded in Lee

County last February by longtime banking veteran Bill Valenti. “The large banks

certainly have a place in our county. But based on their size, they have to

operate in a certain way,” says Valenti, whose bank, which he expects to be

profitable by July, has two locations in Fort Myers. “For some people, that’s

just not the way they like to do banking.”

It’s that hometown touch that community bank operators like

to focus on, especially as communities grow and thrive. “We’ve seen so much

consolidation in the big banks. People see the community banks as an

opportunity to go to somebody they know who’s able to give them the credit they

need because they’ve known them so long,” Valenti says.

That philosophy doesn’t always last, of course. Many smaller

Southwest Florida banks, including South Florida Bank, which Valenti used to

work for, have been gobbled up by national and regional companies, losing the

hometown feel they played up so much. Such acquisitions can result in happy

investors but frustrated clients.

Robbie Roepstorff and her husband, Geoff, were working at

Heritage National Bank in Fort Myers when SouthTrust purchased it in September

1996. Fifteen days later, they resigned because they preferred the work

environment of a community-based bank. Less than a year later, in August 1997,

they opened Edison National Bank.

When the Roepstorffs organized Edison, they pointed out to

stockholders, all local residents, that they would probably not reap a quick

return on their investment. “They had to be willing to make a long-term

commitment. Some people appreciated our honesty and dropped out,” says Robbie

Roepstorff, now Edison’s president. The company, which started with $6 million

in capital, now has more than $110 million and 45 employees.

Naming the company and its three autonomous locations—which

are treated as equal offices, not just branches, and are run by executives with

decision-making authority—took thought and some investigation. The Roepstorffs

discovered that when Barnett Bank, which was later acquired by NationsBank and

became Bank of America with the merger of those two companies, bought the old

Edison National Bank, it didn’t protect its name. The names Bank of the Islands

and Lee County Bank weren’t protected, either. The names fit their three

markets—south Fort Myers, Sanibel Island (the Roepstorffs’ home) and downtown

Fort Myers—and each of the banks had former customers who the Roepstorffs

suspected would happily return to their old community bank. The couple hired

well-known bankers in each area to run each office.

Community treasure chests

To become part of the community, bankers have to ask

themselves what the community needs. Instead of building new structures, the

Roepstorffs invested in a First Union office that had sat empty for two years

at the entrance to Seven Lakes Leisure Village near Cypress Lake Parkway and

U.S. 41 in Fort Myers. On Sanibel, they used a building formerly occupied by

Bank of the Islands and NationsBank. They lease Edison’s downtown location from

the city. “It’s not good for a community to have rundown buildings,” Robbie

says.

They also paid careful attention to the ambience of each

bank, from décor to “personality-plus” receptionists knowledgeable about the

bank as well as the area. “If nobody speaks to you when you walk in to a bank,

it can be intimidating,” Robbie says.

Each Edison bank is decorated to reflect a specific

community and to emphasize the difference between it and the national banks’

cookie-cutter branches. Bank of the Islands’ Island Room features a large

aquarium to emphasize its proximity to the ocean. It also offers customers

sweets, coffee and a television. Edison National Bank’s Edison Reading Room

provides newspapers along with a television and free cookies and coffee.

Every bank, from national corporate enterprises to one-office,

locally owned institutions, has its place in the market, Robbie Roepstorff

says. When big corporations like Sony come to town, bringing international

business, they need big banks like SunTrust or Bank of America. “For an area’s

economic development, corporate banks have to be available,” she says. “But we

pick up their employees’ accounts, even their chief executive officer’s

accounts.”

What do customers really want? To be remembered, and to get

quick turnaround, says Bob Guididas, another longtime Southwest Florida banking

veteran. From 1991 to 1995, he ran Bank of Naples, which was purchased bystyle="mso-spacerun: yes"> Fifth Third, which now has 10 locations and

is building a Lee County headquarters and a new office in Collier County. When

Guididas opened Community Bank of Naples five-and-a half years ago, “customers

were waiting for us,” he says. Since then, at least five other local and

national banks have entered the market.

Customers like a bank that has community in the name, he

contends. “They want the hometown banking that they’re used to in the past,” he

says. “Really, it’s one-on-one personal service. People have access to the

president.”

There’s another way most of the area’s banks show community

involvement. Last year, Bank of America’s employees belonged to more than 40

local civic and charitable organizations. The company gives associates two

hours of paid time off every week to volunteer in the schools. SunTrust has

given more than $250,000 to the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity to build

housing for underprivileged families. Edison National’s thousands of dollars in

charitable donations and hundreds of volunteer hours are its greatest marketing

tool, says Robbie. Fifth Third recently

donated $15,000 to the Collier County Education Foundation. That’s just a

recent sampling of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds and services banks

provide.

“We become very entrenched in the communities that we

serve,” says Gerri Moll, president of Bank of America in Lee and Collier

counties. Like the majority of the area’s banking leaders, Moll is involved in

charitable organizations as well as economic development and business groups.

“Our associates have a personal interest in those organizations,” she says. “We

give them time off because it’s the right thing to do as a good corporate

citizen. If this involvement helps to build our brand and our image, that’s

great.”

—Susan Holly contributed to this story.