SPRINGFIELD — In what will be the start of the bank’s panned expansion into western Massachusetts, JPMorgan Chase will open its Springfield branch at 1391 Main St. on March 7.
Chase plans a grand opening celebration for 10 a.m. March 15, said spokesman Justin K. Page, with a second location set to open weeks later.
Chase Bank’s Northampton location at the former Silverscape Designs building, 1 King St., is set to open April 11.
Chase also plans to have a new location built for it on Route 9 in Hadley.
Chase says it wants to double its Massachusetts presence by 2025. It opened its first Massachusetts branch in Boston in 2018 and now has 37 offices.
Its first Worcester office opened last year 81 Gold Star Blvd. Chase plans four additional Worcester-area branches.
The nearest Chase branch currently operating is at 50 Hazard Ave. in Enfield, Connecticut. Chase has ATMs in the Ludlow and Blandford rest stops on the Massachusetts Turnpike.
The Springfield office will be in the Harrison Place building. It was once Third National Bank and, more recently, Bank of Western Massachusetts and People’s United Bank.
In Northampton, Chase bought 1 King St., the former First National Bank of Northampton, in September 2022 for $1.3 million from DP Holdings, a company controlled by Wallace Perlman, the final owner of jewlery store Silverscape Designs.
Perlman put the 7,951-square-foot, limestone and granite building on the market in 2019 with a $2 million asking price.
Perlman at the time said he planned to move the jewelry store to a smaller space. But in 2020, he decided to close the store and leave the building vacant.
His late brother, Denis Perlman, bought 1 King St., in 1993 from the former Fleet Bank and moved Silverscape there from Pleasant Street.
Denis Perlman, an airplane enthusiast and licensed pilot, died in a single-engine plane crash in 2000.
The Northampton location, and Chase Bank, is the target of a boycott by Climate Action Now, a group that opposes fossile fuels and Chase Bank’s involvement in the industry.
The new Chase banking branch on Main Street in downtown Springfield will be opening on March 7, 2023. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 2/22/2023
Source: masslive.com
