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With a plan to hire 140 locals in a three-year period, Banesco USA grows its footprint in South Florida, opening a brand new headquarters in Doral.
Independent Florida state-chartered bank Banesco USA, with $2.9 billion in assets as of December, has moved its headquarters to Doral to a fully renovated location at 3155 NW 77th Ave. The property, previously Kingsway Amigo Insurance, an insurance company that went out of business, was bought for $11.5 million for redevelopment in a three-year period.
Now, it’s a 60,000-square-foot, three-story building with state-of-the-art amenities, customized meeting rooms, client conference rooms, an interactive training room and a café with a private chef, according to a press release from the bank.
“We came across this opportunity and it took a lot of vision because the building was in very poor condition,” said Calixto Garcia-Velez, president and CEO of Banesco USA. “It was a complete rehab.”
Banesco USA, which has a heavy focus on commercial, corporate and other overall professional banking, is to open its new headquarters Feb. 9. This expansion follows a $250 million equity investment from the US Department of Treasury’s Emergency Capital Investment Program (ECIP), received last June, which came from a $8.7 billion investment by the US Treasury to support financial institutions that are pivotal to minority communities.
“We did a study of where our employees live, and we found that the area of Doral was the center point of everybody’s personal addresses in a map’s radius,” said Mr. Garcia-Velez. “We wanted to be in someplace that would be convenient for our employees to get to and from their homes.”
In addition, he said, the areas of Doral, Hialeah, Medley and Miami Springs are where the bank’s clientele is based, “which is mostly commercial, and we’re very excited about that.”
Banesco USA, which was founded in 2006, is looking to hire 140 people from different disciplines over three years “to execute our growth strategy,” said Mr. Garcia-Velez. “We believe that the competitive landscape in banking has changed so much. We have a huge opportunity, so we’re really looking for people that share that passion of growing a business.”
