Page 22 - BusinessWest January 22, 2024

President Dave Glidden
BANKING & FINANCE >>
Moving North
Liberty Bank Continues Expansion into Western Mass.
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
Dave Glidden has long referred to it as the “I-91 corridor
22 JANUARY 22, 2024
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strategy.”
This is the growth
plan for Middletown, Conn.-based Liberty Bank, one
that, as the name suggests, focuses on the I-91 corridor, which stretches from New Haven into Southern Vermont.
The bank has followed that strategy, increasing its presence in Southern Conn., and now Western Mass. as well, taking another important step in what could be called its northward advance with the opening last month of its first branch in this region — on Shaker Road in East Longmeadow, just a few miles from the state line.
“We are selectively and cautiously considering where to go next. We don’t have to be inarush,butI
can see a total
of maybe three
to six branches over the next few years — if the right opportunities present themselves.”
The facility, a former United
Cooperative and then People-
sUnited branch, was home to
a commercial loan-production
office that Liberty opened in
2021 and eventually moved to the 23rd floor
of Monarch Place in downtown Springfield — after that LPO gave Liberty a foothold of sorts and convinced Glidden, the bank’s president, and other members of his leadership team that it was time to open a full-service branch in the 413.
“We generated a lot of volume and a lot of new customers out of there, and some good deposits,” he said. “When it got to that point, I said, ‘OK ... we’ve proven that there’s space