The Village Bank headquarters on Midlothian Turnpike. (Courtesy of CBRE)
Ending a five-year effort, a Midlothian bank has unloaded its former headquarters building in a sale that takes it a step closer to finally ditching the last of its recession-era regulatory burden.
Village Bank announced Thursday it has sold its Watkins Centre building, a 70,000-square-foot office that it built in 2008 for $12.25 million.
The buyer was Uphoff Ventures, run by local businessman Steve Uphoff, who owns bowling alleys and a chain of convenience stores and gas stations.
The sale closed Wednesday, according to Village Bank CEO Bill Foster, who said the transaction is likely the last step the bank needed to take to be released from its written agreement with federal and state regulators. That agreement was put in place in 2012 to force the bank into improving its financial condition coming out of the recession.
Bill Foster
“We believe this satisfies everything we need to do to be released from that,” said Foster, adding that he wasn’t sure how quickly that release might be granted. “We’re very confident.”
Village is the only local bank still under a written agreement, a tool used by regulators at the height of the recession to make sure troubled banks got back on the right track. Several local banks were hit with written agreements but have long since been released from them.
The Watkins Centre property had been on the market since 2011. It was put up for sale as an attempt to remedy a rules snafu, in which Village inadvertently failed to inform the Federal Reserve that it transferred ownership of the building from the holding company to the bank in 2010.
Village vacated the four-story building, which sits on six acres at 15521 Midlothian Turnpike just off 288, in 2014 in favor of more modest digs about five miles up the road. Its current tenants include Pietech, James River Wealth Advisors and John Clair’s Evolution Advisors.
The Midlothian-based bank initially listed the property in 2011 at around $16 million. Village said in a release the $12.25 million sales price exceeds the value of the building the bank held on its books and “will result in a small gain.”
Village, along with a couple of other local banks, financed Uphoff’s purchase of the building. Foster said Uphoff beat out two other local buyers. The deal went under contract less than a month ago.
CBRE | Richmond brokered the sale and will handle leasing on the building.
Wednesday’s sale to Uphoff was first reported by the Times-Dispatch.
The written agreement Village has with the Federal Reserve and the state’s Bureau of Financial Institutions is the last remaining piece of recession-era oversight the bank is under.
Village was already released from an involuntary, more stringent consent order overseen by the FDIC in December and got out from under a voluntary memorandum of understanding with the FDIC in May.
Foster said the consent order release in December helped give the bank some momentum.
“I noticed it in terms of our recruiting and dealing with business customers. We started winning a lot of business in December,” he said.
Foster said the release of the written agreement would be one last victory on Village’s road back to stability.
“For us it’s like the closure that comes from really being done with all this,” Foster said. “It removes a possible question about the future.”
The Village Bank headquarters on Midlothian Turnpike. (Courtesy of CBRE)
Ending a five-year effort, a Midlothian bank has unloaded its former headquarters building in a sale that takes it a step closer to finally ditching the last of its recession-era regulatory burden.
Village Bank announced Thursday it has sold its Watkins Centre building, a 70,000-square-foot office that it built in 2008 for $12.25 million.
The buyer was Uphoff Ventures, run by local businessman Steve Uphoff, who owns bowling alleys and a chain of convenience stores and gas stations.
The sale closed Wednesday, according to Village Bank CEO Bill Foster, who said the transaction is likely the last step the bank needed to take to be released from its written agreement with federal and state regulators. That agreement was put in place in 2012 to force the bank into improving its financial condition coming out of the recession.
Bill Foster
“We believe this satisfies everything we need to do to be released from that,” said Foster, adding that he wasn’t sure how quickly that release might be granted. “We’re very confident.”
Village is the only local bank still under a written agreement, a tool used by regulators at the height of the recession to make sure troubled banks got back on the right track. Several local banks were hit with written agreements but have long since been released from them.
The Watkins Centre property had been on the market since 2011. It was put up for sale as an attempt to remedy a rules snafu, in which Village inadvertently failed to inform the Federal Reserve that it transferred ownership of the building from the holding company to the bank in 2010.
Village vacated the four-story building, which sits on six acres at 15521 Midlothian Turnpike just off 288, in 2014 in favor of more modest digs about five miles up the road. Its current tenants include Pietech, James River Wealth Advisors and John Clair’s Evolution Advisors.
The Midlothian-based bank initially listed the property in 2011 at around $16 million. Village said in a release the $12.25 million sales price exceeds the value of the building the bank held on its books and “will result in a small gain.”
Village, along with a couple of other local banks, financed Uphoff’s purchase of the building. Foster said Uphoff beat out two other local buyers. The deal went under contract less than a month ago.
CBRE | Richmond brokered the sale and will handle leasing on the building.
Wednesday’s sale to Uphoff was first reported by the Times-Dispatch.
The written agreement Village has with the Federal Reserve and the state’s Bureau of Financial Institutions is the last remaining piece of recession-era oversight the bank is under.
Village was already released from an involuntary, more stringent consent order overseen by the FDIC in December and got out from under a voluntary memorandum of understanding with the FDIC in May.
Foster said the consent order release in December helped give the bank some momentum.
“I noticed it in terms of our recruiting and dealing with business customers. We started winning a lot of business in December,” he said.
Foster said the release of the written agreement would be one last victory on Village’s road back to stability.
“For us it’s like the closure that comes from really being done with all this,” Foster said. “It removes a possible question about the future.”
I’m glad to hear that Village Bank is finally shedding the last of its baggage. There are good people there and they are due some good news like this. It would seem that things are certainly looking promising in the Foster era; although, I don’t think we have seen Village Bank turn a consistent profit quite yet. Their 2nd quarter earnings should be quite interesting