Chelsea Groton Bank, one of the nation’s oldest remaining depositor-owned lenders, wants to expand for the first time its shoreline/eastern Connecticut footprint into Hartford County.
The $973 million-asset Norwich mutual bank recently applied to the state Department of Banking for permission to open a loan-production office at 273 Hebron Ave. in Glastonbury.
Lori Dufficy, senior vice president and director of sales and services, said that if regulators approve, the bank hopes to open sometime in the third quarter with five or six employees in about 2,200 square feet of leased space in the streetfront office building.
“We are highly capitalized and ready to lend,” Dufficy said.
Staff will include as many as four residential-mortgage loan officers, one commercial banker, and one administrative staffer, Dufficy said.
Chelsea Groton spent about a year searching for the ideal office location, including in Colchester, Lyme, and East Haddam, she said.
Glastonbury, where major Connecticut mortgage lender United Bank is based, was ideal, Dufficy said, due to its high percentage of households who rent, posing a huge lending opportunity to potential homebuyers.
The bank’s 14 branches are mostly in the state’s southeast corner.
— Gregory Seay
