PORT TOWNSEND — First Federal plans to close its 2-year-old bank branch upstairs at Aldrich’s Market this summer after shuttering the bank’s coffee shop, The Vault, on Friday.
Bank officials said they could not reach a lease agreement with the uptown grocery store’s owners — which rankled one of the owners of Aldrich’s Market, at 940 Lawrence St., Port Townsend.
Branches will merge
“We will be merging the operations of our uptown location with the Castle Hill branch, effective Aug. 1,” Gina E. Lowman, First Federal senior vice president and chief banking officer, confirmed in a e-mail Tuesday.
That branch is at 1321 W. Sims Way and includes drive-though teller and automated teller service.
Phone calls to Lowman on Tuesday for additional comments were not returned.
“The decision to merge our operations is a result of the inability of management from Aldrich’s Market and First Federal to reach mutually agreeable lease terms,” she said in the e-mail.
That explanation, which was conveyed to First Federal customers who use the branch in an April 28 letter, did not rest well with one of Aldrich’s owners, Milton Fukuda, who shares the store’s ownership with his wife, Renee, and son, Scott.
Posted on wall
Milton Fukuda posted First Federal’s letter to customers and his reply, dated last Thursday, to that letter on a wall inside the grocery store.
Citing a good customer and business relationship with the bank in the past, Fukuda wrote, “We are surprised and shocked, however, that you would characterize your decision in a manner which suggests that Aldrich’s Market was pivotal in your decision not to continue the lease.
“The bottom line is that, by now, you are well aware that opening a branch in the uptown location was a bad idea from the beginning.”
In an interview Tuesday at the store, Fukuda said he was more than willing to negotiate a new lease with the bank.
“We were in negotiations, but it was never very serious,” he said.
“I would have shaved off hundreds of dollars in rent,” he said.
“For them to blame it on us, it really gripes me.”
First Federal opened its uptown branch and The Vault coffee shop on the mezzanine level of Aldrich’s Market, on March 3, 2008.
It was the eighth bank branch for First Federal — opened with two managers and three tellers — and its first coffee shop.
A night drop was made available for merchants as well as an outdoor automated teller machine near the sidewalk corner entrance to Aldrich’s.
The bank branch was open Tuesday but the automated teller machine was not working, and a sign on it directed customers to the bank teller inside the store.
In his letter to the bank, Fukuda commended the bank for making a tough decision to close the branch.
Offended
“However, surely there could have been a more diplomatic way of characterizing the closure rather than offending a loyal customer and supporter, for offended we truly are,” his letter said.
“It could just as easily have been attributed to the hard economic times, or your recently announced decision to review all aspects of your bank to improve profitability, or to objectives not being achieved to date and in the foreseeable future, etc., etc.,” he said.
“Instead, you chose to do a mass mailing which tells the public that the only reason you are closing the branch is a failure to reach agreement with us on the renewal terms.”
Responding to a PDN request for the bank’s side of the story, Lowman said, “We do not wish to participate in any negative communication regarding this merger of operations, and will not engage in discussing details which might not paint others in an agreeable manner.
“Unfortunately, the Fukudas have suggested we attribute this merger to something other than an inability to reach mutually agreeable lease terms.
“We were simply unable to reach mutually agreeable terms with the management of Aldrich’s Market.”
The Vault Coffee Shop was separately managed, serving Caffe Vita coffee and a wide variety of baked goods and early morning and evening hours.
Local artists have been featured at the bank branch and coffee shop.
The coffee shop was “a totally new concept for First Federal,” said Connie Kemp, director of retail services, at the time of the 2008 opening.
“We are very excited about combining the fun and funky feel of the coffee shop with the services of a bank.
“I’m confident the Port Townsend community will embrace both The Vault and the new branch.”
First Federal, which is locally owned and managed, has been in business for more than 80 years on the North Olympic Peninsula.
It operates banking facilites in Port Angeles, Forks, Sequim and Port Townsend.
The bank, which began in 1923, laid off about 10 employees in January in its Port Angeles and Sequim branches.
More layoffs were possible, a bank official said then.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
