The 234 Apartment

As you do more banking by smartphone, that bank branch you used to visit may soon turn into a restaurant, a day care center or even a condo tower. After a branch building boom a decade or so ago, banks are closing offices by the thousands as more of their customers bank online . They're leaving behind space ready to be transformed into something else, whether an urban storefront or a free- standing brick building with a drive-thru in the suburbs. "If the real estate is strong, any number of things can happen to the property," says Kim McGuire, senior vice president in the Chicago office of CBRE. It's a problem or an opportunity, depending on your perspective, that will be here for a while. Banks operate about 89,300 branches in the United States today , down 8 percent over the past decade, according to Chicago- based real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle . JLL expects an additional 20 percent drop over the next decade. In the Chicago area, the number of branches d...

Written by Michael P. Walsh WEST HAVEN, CT — Clasping a pair of oversize scissors, Mayor Edward M. O’Brien cut the ceremonial ribbon Thursday with Acorn Group founder David A. Beckerman and Vice President Gary S. Letendre to mark the grand opening of Acorn’s The Atwood, an $18 million apartment and commercial development at 222 Boston Post Road aimed at making the neighborhood around the Allingtown Green a destination. As many of the new building’s residents, all students of the nearby University of New Haven, moved into their new digs, O’Brien touted The Atwood’s highly anticipated opening as “one example of how we are transforming West Haven through economic development .” “This area is transforming before our eyes,” O’Brien told a group of more than a dozen city officials and project executives moments before the afternoon ribbon -cutting, which also included Jay Brotman , managing partner of the New Haven architectural firm Svigals + Partners, state Rep. Michael A. DiMass...

We make no presumptions about why you’re seeking our help today: maybe you’re here because you accidentally followed Mike Pence on Twitter for a few minutes and you’re feeling unclean. Maybe your uncle Ralph shared a misspelled update on your Facebook wall last week warning about contamination at a fishing hole back home in Indiana and a couple of your friends liked it. Maybe you’re just feeling generally insecure about your life ever since you found out that the exposed brick in your new apartment wasn’t original to the building. Whatever the circumstances, you’re here because you’re an urban professional below forty with an income north of six figures and a STOP KEYSTONE XL bumper sticker on your rarely-used road bike, you’re insecure about your social status, and you want to remind your family, friend, and coworkers of your place in the world. With that in mind, may we humbly suggest that you use social media to share a short, wryly funny humor piece from a respected national...