United Bank expanding locally with East End branch

United Bank plans to take over the former SunTrust branch at 4307 Williamsburg Road. (BizSense file photo)

Three years after buying its way into the Richmond market, United Bank is expanding its local footprint.

The $29 billion D.C.- and West Virginia-based bank is planning a new branch in eastern Henrico.

It filed an application in recent weeks to take over a former SunTrust building 4307 Williamsburg Road, next door to Country Style Donuts.

United will look to lease the vacant 3,200-square-foot building from NNN REIT, a Florida-based real estate investment trust that bought the property in 2013 for $552,000. It’s unclear whether United will lease or buy the property.

United Bank is headquartered in West Virginia and D.C.

Rex Smith, head of United’s Richmond-area operations, declined to comment at length while the branch’s regulatory application is still pending.

If approved by regulators, the location will be United’s first new local branch since it entered the region in 2021 with the acquisition of Henrico-based Essex Bank. That deal included Essex’s 12 locations in the area.

United has more than 200 branches across Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Georgia. It keeps dual headquarters in Charleston, West Virginia and the Washington, D.C. area.

The bank controls about $762 million in local deposits, according to the latest FDIC stats. That makes it the region’s ninth largest bank based on deposits.

In other local banking news, Prince George-based Touchstone Bank was acquired last week by First Bank out of Strasburg. Midlothian-based Village Bank struck a deal last month to be acquired by TowneBank.

And while United looks to grow its area branch count, Wells Fargo is set to shutter another of its local branches, this time in northern Chesterfield.