A few months ago, we told you that local gem Valley Green Bank would be taking over a vacant commercial space on the northwest corner of Broad & Tasker. Most recently a WIC office, the building was originally constructed in the late 1960s as a Continental Bank branch. It continued in its original banking use through the 1990s, and was apparently a video store for a time before the WIC office and a mental health office took over in the last decade.

Back in January

The new look

On June 10th, Valley Green Bank’s third branch officially opened its doors for customers. Metcalfe Architecture and Design did a bang-up job on the building, bringing new personality, color, and light to an already unique work of architecture. And apparently the bank was easy to work with, as Alan Metcalfe said in a press release “The Bank gave us the freedom to reinvent how to modernize a structure within the context of the neighborhood’s sensibilities.” Check out a couple more shots of the structure:

Zoomed in

Love the yellow on the northern face of the building

As we mentioned when we first brought this project to your attention, Valley Green Bank is one of the best institutions in town for local developers. In contrast to the large regional or national banks, Valley Green’s position as a local community institution allows it to maintain a very clear understanding of how business works in Philadelphia. Because of this, they’ve been very active in lending to small businesses, including developers seeking construction loans. Try to explain the market dynamics of Passyunk Square to a representative from Bank of America and you might as well try to eat a bag full of rocks. But especially with this new location splitting the gap between Passyunk Square and Point Breeze, the folks at Valley Green understand exactly what’s going on and are able to leverage this knowledge into crucial loans leading to successful development.

When we poked our head in the door, we found the space to be warm and inviting, and the folks working at the branch to be welcoming and friendly. While we might not be moving our personal banking to Valley Green just yet (maybe when they open a Center City location?), we know exactly where we’re going if we ever need a construction loan… to that handsome building at Broad & Tasker.