Wells Fargo Southside office
The Wells Fargo Southside office is a former bank branch at 2401 6th Avenue South, on the southeast corner of the intersection with 24th Street South in Birmingham's Southside.
The office was constructed for Birmingham Trust National Bank on the former site of the Birmingham Chero-Cola Bottling Co. / Birmingham Ne-Hi Bottling Co. It opened in January 1955 as the bank's fourth "neighborhood branch", following those in East Lake, Mountain Brook, and Five Points West.
The boxy, modern style building featured air-conditioning, glare-proof windows, fluorescent lighting, and carefully-selected finishes to promote a "gracious and restful atmosphere". The safe deposit box vault was the largest of any branch and the bank offered private booths and conference rooms for use by customers, as well as a private payroll room for business customers. Outside was a spacious parking lot and three drive-thru windows.
Later additional office and employee training space was added by extending the second floor of the building out over the drive-thru lanes.
In 1981 BTNB was renamed "SouthTrust Bank". In 2005 SouthTrust was taken over by Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Bank. Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia in 2009. The 16,900 square-foot office was used as a training center by those banks.
In March 2019 the property was sold for $1.67 million to Adevco, an Atlanta, Georgia-based real estate company that planned to redevelop the building for self-storage uses. The sale included an agreement to keep the bank's ATM at that location under lease. After the City of Birmingham passed a 6-month moratorium on licenses for new self-storage facilities, Adevco put the building back on the market. Steve DeMedicis, owner of the nearby Iron City entertainment complex, purchased the property for $1.93 million and plans to convert it into event space with a rooftop bar.
References
- Godwin, Brent (March 6, 2019) "Southside building sale adds to activity." Birmingham Business Journal
- Van der Bijl, Hanno (September 17, 2019) "Iron City to redevelop former Wells Fargo branch for new event space." Birmingham Business Journal