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Branch on Way to Brookland After 3 Years With No Bank

2 min read

The fast-growing Jonesboro bedroom community of Brookland should see the return of a local bank office by the first quarter of 2021.

Batesville’s First Community Bank plans to kick off construction of a 4,000-SF full-service branch at 8101 U.S. 49 during the next 60 days.

Brookland, less than 3 miles northeast of Jonesboro, has been bankless for nearly four years since Southern Bank of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, closed its 1,492-SF office. Sold for $90,000 in December 2017 to the Brookland School District, the former branch now houses the district’s administration office.

“That’s the fastest-growing school system in the state of Arkansas,” said Dale Cole, chairman and CEO of First Community. Registration for the 2019-20 school year totaled 2,670 students, a reflection of the city’s overall growth.

During the past decade, the population of Brookland doubled to more than 3,500.

City officials believe the count will be closer to 4,200 when the current census numbers are tallied.

Ownership of the Brookland bank branch went through five lenders before the school district entered the picture.

The former Brookland bank branch was originally developed back in the early 1990s by Jonesboro’s Mercantile Bank, which became Union Planters Bank of Northeast Arkansas.

The property was sold for $222,000 in November 2001 to Jonesboro’s Midsouth Bank, which was enduring loan problems and heightened regulatory supervision.

Paragould’s Southern Bank of Commerce purchased the branch for $100,000 in March 2003, six months ahead of Midsouth’s sale to Wallace Fowler’s Liberty Bancshares.

Six years later, Southern Bank of Commerce was teetering on the brink of insolvency when it was sold to Southern Missouri, the publicly traded parent of Poplar Bluff’s Southern Bank.

More Construction

The Brookland branch will be First Community’s fifth location in Craighead County’s $2.8 billion-deposit market.

The bank operates three offices in Jonesboro and one in Bay, which are home to combined deposits of more than $210 million that represent a 7.5% share of county deposits.

In addition to Brookland, First Community is juggling construction projects in Batesville and west Little Rock.

Cole hopes to see the construction of a 16,000-SF office launched by July on a site purchased for $2.3 million at the southwest corner of Rahling Road and Rahling Circle in the Chenal area of Little Rock.

First Community also is developing a 28,000-SF operations center in Batesville. Both projects should be completed in the first quarter of 2021.

The bank recorded a first-quarter profit of nearly $3.7 million as total assets climbed from $1.5 billion at March 31 to more than $1.7 billion as of May 20.

Cole said that despite the COVID-19 chaos, customers opened more than 1,000 new accounts monthly at First Community.

“Like all bankers we’re watching and wondering, ‘Will the habits of customers change as we come out of the coronavirus?’” he said. “And they probably will.”

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