Inside Job Reveals Bank’s Future Riches

Treasure hunters broke into an historic New Haven bank — and the bank was gone. Its future, meanwhile, came into view.

Until two weeks ago, the 17,322 square-foot two-story first-floor space across from the Green at the corner of Church and Elm Streets housed Wells Fargo Bank. For close to a century it housed iterations of Union Trust.

Now all the desks and chairs and signs and money and humans had vanished. The bank branch closed. The marble floors, Corinthian columns, domed ceiling, ironwork-decorated tellers’ circle (pictured above) remained amid ghosts of downtown New Haven’s commercial past.

The three visitors didn’t exactly break in. They had a key. They were there to take in the historic grandeur — and imagine what might next inhabit the awe-inspiring space as downtown New Haven enters a new commercial era.

The newly vacated bank space sits anchors the Union Trust building at 205 Church St. Above it soar 13 stories of former offices that New York developer David Kuperberg transformed into 137 luxury apartments. Kuperberg knew what he was doing: all apartments are rented thanks to a market-rate rental boom in New Haven. He said he intends at some point to dust off a plan to build more apartments on the adjacent parking lot on Elm Street; Covid, financing challenges and rising interest rates put that plan on hold.

Coinciding with the urban rental boom has been a shift away from in-person banking. Branches have downsized or closed throughout the city. What comes next in those central spaces is one of the great puzzles in this phase of New Haven’s transformation.

One block away, a different developer demolished the historic Webster Bank building in hopes of building a hotel in its place. Those plans cratered. The site is now a hole in the ground; builder Clay Fowler of Spinnaker Real Estate Partners said he has plans to pursue building apartments there instead.

Kuperberg owns another historic former bank headquarters three blocks south at 45 Church St. He said a plan is in the works for a new use for that spot (to be announced later), which last housed Connecticut Savings Bank.

He has no specific plan yet for the newly vacated Union Trust space. Some people have suggested building interior two-story townhouse apartments. Other suggestions include event or restaurant space.

“This is not just a bank. This is the iconic space in all of New Haven. For the first time since 1920-something, it’s become available. It’s a generational opportunity,” Kuperberg remarked. 

Three of the New Haven-based people charged with helping reimagine and market that space were the ones casing the joint Monday: Chuck and Lea Mascola of the Mascola Agency and Chelsea Frenette, property manager for Kuperberg’s Novum Properties.

“Imagine what this would have been like in the 1930s, like a Turner classic black and white movie. People moving in and out of this building, to finance a home — people needed to believe their money was safe. Banks were built as vaults for people to feel comfortable, that your money is going to be safe,” Chuck Mascola reflected.

Mascola pivoted to the future: ​“You can imagine tables set up here. You can imagine inside the [teller] cage having a big central bar. Then you have all these mezzanine spaces that look down on this main room. It may be that this room deserves more than one food operation. Perhaps this is New Haven’s food hall … Downtown New Haven does not have a place where you can get all kinds of food under one roof. This could be our South Street seaport. This could be our Fanueil Hall. People have to think big.” (Click here to read about one such transformation of a 102-year-old former Sacramento bank.)

Inside the teller cage, mini-vaults were pried open. ​“If you see any gold bars in there,” Mascola quipped, ​“let me know.”

A larger, walk-in vault awaited, another 12,668 square-foot historical stage set with side rooms and infinite future possibilities awaited down a winding staircase.

Mascola put his shoulder to the door. ​“Imagine someone trying to push open that vault,” he reflected.

Inside, generations of personal transactions haunted rows of empty safe-deposit boxes. The visitors wondered aloud about what new use could be found here; Frenette suggested a restaurant or event facility’s wine cellar. 

“How many people’s lives were set by these minutes?” Chuck Mascola marveled upon finding a Union Trust book cleared of all the evidence.

A sign may have reassured everyone that, if the heavy door did accidentally shut, there was no need to panic. (“THERE IS PLENTY OF AIR UNTIL YOU ARE RELEASED.”)

Two floors up, overlooking the rotunda, 12,563 square feet of additional space with new possibilities beckoned.

A board room where decisions about people’s livelihoods or mortgages may have once been determined presented itself as a potential private dining or event room …

… with a prime view out on central New Haven.

Other wood-paneled spaces started the imagination running about future living spaces or auxiliary rental rooms or private dining areas.

A water-damaged wallpaper mural suggested that these behind-the-scenes rooms have played important roles in the past.

Any thoughts on what might be the best or more interesting use for this architectural gem in the center of our rebustling city? Please feel free to offer them in the comments section below.