It certainly seems that we in the Central Rockies will be spared the kind of damaging floods now ravaging parts of the Midwest, though we can’t be sure the expected monumental spring runoff won’t cause us our own kinds of problems.
But we are seeing the damage that can be caused by another kind of flooding — the tsunami of cash that constantly ebbs and flows through our commercial development community, most recently represented in the crisis generated by the purchase of a downtown building in Glenwood Springs by American National Bank, known by the initials ANB since 2011.
The bank has announced that the current tenants of the building in the 900 block of Grand Avenue will need to leave next year, so the bank can put up its second building in Glenwood Springs, the first being a rather blockish structure at 2624 Grand Ave.
All told, seven existing small businesses in that 900 block location must vacate, including KC’s Wing House, Tesseract Comics & Games, Jewels & Gems, Bellini’s Fashion, CPA Services Pro, Inc., Glenwood Spa ‘N’ Nails and Glenwood Escape Room.
These are not the first local businesses to succumb this year to the rampant real estate shuffle going on in Glenwood — the town’s last book store, Book Train, recently closed its doors after the building it occupied, in the 700 block of Grand Ave., was sold to a real estate speculator.
I label the buyer a “speculator” because, despite early rumors about plans to open an ice cream and candy shop in the space that once sold books, a “for sale” sign recently showed up in the window facing the street.
Looks to me like the new owner would rather flip the property to a new buyer, presumably at a profit, and flee with the proceeds, than put up with the anger of bookish and historical preservation types who feel betrayed by the Book Train situation.
Back to the 900 block. ANB’s position certainly is not helped by the fact that very few people, other than bankers themselves, trust bankers to do much that actually might benefit the community in which they do business, rather than mainly acting to boost the company’s bottom line.
Too many of us are still smarting from the terror and destruction of the 2008 financial meltdown, which was caused by banks acting more arrogantly than intelligently in their mad pursuit of ever-mounting profits from questionable investments.
And now, ANB comes along and blithely announces that the century-old building, which takes up much of the 900 block along Grand, will be torn down to make way for ANB’s second bank in the town, and the tenants are out of luck.
If ANB’s existing building in Glenwood is any guide, it’s not very likely that the new structure would be much of an architectural gem, which is no surprise to anyone familiar with bank designs in rural towns.
I should point out right here that ANB, which bills itself as a Colorado corporation though it also has branches in Wyoming, bought the 900-block building in late October 2018, according to news reporting on this story, and wasted no time in getting letters to the soon-to-be-gone businesses about the transfer of ownership.
The first letter went out one day after the sale, according to reports, but did not mention the plan to tear down the building. A second letter, five days later, also did not mention the impending demolition, but simply advised tenants that existing leases would be honored going forward.
It was not until tenants began to wonder about lease renewals in 2020 that the truth became clear, and business owners, some of whom reportedly had spent big bucks renovating their space, suddenly were faced with forced relocation.
Thus, it is that I can write quite confidently that ANB is showing the kind of arrogance that is typical of the breed — they have the money to pretty much do what they please, wherever they please to do it, and the little guys and gals who find themselves blocking the way of the bulldozers had better just get out and not complain.
Some of these businesses have been in place for decades, and they deserve a lot better treatment than this.
Jewels and Gems, for instance, has been in the center of the doomed street frontage for a quarter of a century (the owner Cheryl Guay, was in a different location for a prior decade). I’m not much of a jewelry hound, but I do carry a pocket watch (never have like strapping a watch around my wrist), and Guay’s has been my go-to shop for repairs and cleanings for some time.
I’m not sure there is another watch-service shop in the valley, perhaps not one closer than Grand Junction, so I have my own reasons for feeling a little burned by this whole process.
And to add insult to injury, my watch is of Russian manufacture (I got it as a gift while visiting the Ukraine a few decades back) and Guay happens to have a couple of Russian emigres who do much of her watch repair work, which has always given me a level of comfort.
I’m pretty sure ANB is not feeling warm and fuzzy about all this, given the level of controversy that already has publicly arisen — one man has a few thousand signatures on a petition aimed at halting ANB in its tracks.
But I do know one thing for sure — ANB is not making any friends with this action, and might be well advised to rethink its plans.