Regions Bank sells its downtown branch

Regions Bank has sold its downtown building to American Financial Realty Trust, but has signed a long-term lease to stay on the first floor. The upper floors are now available office space. (James Clark photo)

Nowadays, it’s not easy getting information about Regions Bank, even though the downtown branch is located about two blocks from the Southern Standard office. But I’ll talk about later.

What I want to talk about now is the fact Regions Bank, which was formerly Union Planters, which was formerly City Bank, has sold its spacious downtown building to American Financial Realty Trust. This doesn’t mean Regions Bank has any plans to leave McMinnville because Regions was given a long-term lease to continue using the first floor. The upper floors, however, are now available to be leased to other businesses.

And here’s where the Regions Bank chain of communication breaks down. Instead of having someone who I know who lives and works in McMinnville tell me about the deal, no one here is allowed to comment. So I’m transferred to regional and corporate executives throughout the Southeast to try to answer a simple question.

And it gets better. One person I talked to said he had the information I wanted, but wasn’t allowed to comment. So he gave me the number of a lady who had been granted the grace to comment, but she had no clue what I was talking about. Isn’t corporate America wonderful?

So what I can tell you is the upper floors of the Regions Bank building are now available for lease. Maybe one day I’ll have an announcement about jobs locating in that building, although I don’t have a clue who to call to get that information.