United Legacy Bank acquires third branch location in Winter Park

Longwood-based United Legacy Bank paid $3 million on Wednesday through its parent company for a former Regions Bank branch in eastern Winter Park, boosting the community bank's footprint to six locations across Greater Orlando.

Located at 2200 Aloma Ave., the 1.02-acre property features a 3,532-square-foot, free-standing bank branch, with traffic counts of 44,000 vehicles per day, according to listing agent Wood Belcher, senior vice president for retail services at CBRE.

The property had originally been a branch owned by National Bank of Commerce in the mid-1990s, which United Legacy Bank is now a division of. This will be the bank's third Winter Park branch.

"We like the Winter Park market, and this puts us in that medical services hot spot (northeast of Winter Park Memorial Hospital)," company president Dave Powers told GrowthSpotter on Thursday. "We're looking to grow in the markets we've been established in since the 1970s, like Winter Park, Maitland, College Park and southern Seminole County."

Powers said a target date for opening the branch hasn't been set yet, but estimated around July or later following the necessary bank filings, landscaping work and new signage required for the property.

The seller was Winter Park Bank Ventures, LLC, an investment affiliate of Deborah Levy out of Aventura, which previously paid $2.3 million for the site in February 2013.

Belcher listed the property on behalf of Regions Bank, for its disposition and termination of the lease. The Regions branch had been vacant for well over a year.

On the commercial lending side, Powers said United Legacy Bank's focus as a hyper-local bank still allows it to offer construction lending for new development, but leads the bank to favor projects by local owner-operators.

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