Article written by Carrie Rengers at The Wichita Eagle
There are two more businesses coming to the 29th North and Greenwich area.
The first is Community National Bank & Trust, which will be on 29th Street North just east of the intersection with Greenwich.
“From our perspective, that’s a very attractive location,” said Jim Faith, the bank’s Wichita president.
He said there are lots of rooftops, shops and other businesses, including a significant one — look for news on that here soon — that Faith said “will ignite even more growth up there.”
Also, he said, “There’s not another bank close by — at least not yet.”
Community National Bank is what Faith called “a privately owned, true community bank” based in Chanute with almost $2.3 billion in total assets.
There are 25 branches in Kansas — Faith said you can’t drive through small southeast Kansas communities without seeing one — including a circle of smaller communities around Wichita. There are eight in Missouri and two Oklahoma.
Until a few years ago, Faith said, “We didn’t have a bank in the city of Wichita.”
However, due to its branches in communities surrounding Wichita, Faith said the bank already did significant business here with lots of customers, loans and deposits.
“From a serving-your-customers standpoint, it made a lot of sense,” he said. “We’ve kind of created our own customer base here.”
He said customers from elsewhere use this facility, too.
“We’re not an urban bank. We’re a small-town bank. But it just makes a lot of sense for us to have a place in Wichita.”
The bank currently leases space at Wilson Estates.
“We always knew that we would need our own space,” Faith said.
The bank bought its new lot with the idea of building not only a retail banking center but a regional operations center, too.
“We are out of space in a lot of places.”
The new two-story building, which will have about 10,000 square feet plus a basement, will have a full retail bank plus regional operations such as trust and compliance departments.
Faith thinks this will be enough room for the foreseeable future.
“Well, ask me in 10 years, but I think so,” he said. “This will allow us to hire people that will support the company for several years to come.”
The bank, which closed on the property late last week, is meeting now with design-build firms with the goal of opening the new site in late summer 2026.
Whitney Vliet Ward of J.P. Weigand & Sons and Alex Ibarra and Ben Suellentrop of ReeceNichols South Central Kansas represented the bank in the deal, and Brad Saville of Landmark Commercial Real Estate represented the seller.
Faith said in addition to being a good fit for the bank, he’s looking forward to other businesses opening nearby.
“There’s a lot of growth happening up there. A lot of good things happening up there.”
