STUART — Seacoast National Bank, the only publicly traded bank headquartered on the Treasure Coast, will move forward with its plan to redevelop its corporate office after receiving unanimous approval Sept. 22 from the City Commission.
Seacoast received approval to construct a three-story, 44-foot tall, 58,647-square-foot modernized building to replace its current corporate office at 815 S. Colorado Ave.
“I like this project for a great many reasons,” said Mayor Campbell Rich during the Sept. 22 meeting. “It’s a terrific project.”
The new building was approved to be built on the same property, closer to the corner of Colorado Avenue and U.S. 1. Seacoast’s existing building, which has been its headquarters since 1961, is planned to be demolished for a 246-foot-long, 90,762-square-foot private parking garage.
“The existing structure has a lot of aspects that are obsolete,” Tracey Dexter, the bank’s chief financial officer, told TCPalm before the meeting. “The air conditioning doesn’t work really well. The elevators break down. It’s really not a great representation of the level of professionalism we bring to the community.”
Seacoast was granted permission to build a longer parking garage than is allowed by the city’s land-development rules, in order to have a more gradual slope. Additionally, a requirement to build an entrance on U.S. 1 was waived — partly due to security concerns.
Construction will take two to three years to complete, Dexter said during the meeting.
“This project really revives and refreshes our headquarters here in Stuart,” Dexter said. “It allows us to better support local homeowners, small businesses, neighbors and our partners here in the community.”
Seacoast was founded nearly a century ago in Sebastian, according to the bank’s website, and it moved to Stuart in 1933 during the Great Depression.
Today, Seacoast has 225 employees at its corporate office and has $215 million loans outstanding to customers and local businesses in the city, Dexter said.
Across all locations, Seacoast manages $15.9 billion in assets and $12.5 billion in deposits as of June 30, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a federal agency that insures bank deposits.
Members of the community were concerned Seacoast would have moved its corporate headquarters elsewhere, if the redevelopment plan did not receive approval — a possibility Dexter did not rule out when asked.
“It depends on the outcome tonight,” Dexter said before the meeting. “We do have a strong sense of urgency to address the inadequate conditions that we are currently operating in.”