A lot at the corner of Main Street and Winterton Road, home to one bank or another for decades, is about to become home to a branch of NorthEast Community Bank.

Renovation of the building last occupied by a Citizens Bank branch will begin next week and the new office is expected to open in April, according to Kenneth A. Martinek, chairman and chief executive officer of the bank’s parent, Northeast Community Bancorp. Martinek said NorthEast now owns the building and only supply chain problems could delay the opening. He said just getting new front doors will take six weeks and new ATM deliveries take five months.

Citizens was one of three bricks-and-mortar banks along Main Street in the village. But Citizens followed Jeff Bank out the door, and they were followed most recently by a branch of The Berkshire Bank, all of them directing customers to branches in other villages and counties.

The rapid shift to online banking has been a major reason behind branch closings across the country, but NorthEast is a bit of a contrarian, settling into a niche for customers who haven’t embraced the digital economy, Martinek said in a phone conversation this week. The average age of its depositors is in the mid-to-late 50s, and many like walking into a bank, he said. In 2019, just over 40 percent of Sullivan County residents were between 50 and 79 years of age, according to the Census Reporter, an open-source project that culls data from the U.S. Census.

The new branch is likely to have five employees, including a manager and assistant manager, and at the start will be open Monday through Friday and possibly a half-day on Saturday, Martinek said. However, some of the bank’s branches are open seven days a week, and the hours of operation in Bloomingburg will be adjusted to best serve customers, he added.

NorthEast also gravitates to regions where there is a lot of construction, Martinek said. Ninety-five percent of its loans are for construction, and Bloomingburg is booming right now. Thanks mainly to an influx of Hasidim, village population shot up by 145 percent to 1,032 in 2020 from 420 in 2010, according to U.S. Census figures. Several multi-unit housing projects are under construction now and more are in the planning stages. NorthEast, which has deposits of $1.4 billion, also has branches in Kiryas Joel in Orange County and Monsey in Rockland County, both of which have substantial Hasidic populations and are growing.

NorthEast was founded in 1934 in New York City, and has branches there and in Massachusetts, in addition to many in Rockland and Orange counties. Its headquarters are located in White Plains.

Sidewalk Deal In Sight

News of the new bank was meet with enthusiasm at Monday night’s Bloomingburg Village Board meeting, as was an update on a deal that will permit sidewalks to be built along Winterton Road. As Mayor Russell Wood Jr. began delivering his monthly report, a villager asked if there was any news on the long-sought sidewalks. Barring unforeseen delays, the Town of Mamakating should take title to a strip of Winterton from Sullivan County by the end of January, Wood said, noting a conversation he had with his son Tyler.

In a phone conversation, Tyler Wood, who was elected in November to the represent Ward 6 on the Mamakating Town Board, said he had spoken to Ben Gailey, the town’s attorney, who told him paperwork should be soon in order to complete the deal. Once the town owns the road, its intermunicipal agreement (IMA) with the village kicks in. The town will permit the village to construct sidewalks from roughly River Lane south along Winterton to the Chestnut Ridge townhouse development. The county had refused to allow the sidewalks on Winterton, which doubles as County Route 62, but agreed to turn over less than a half-mile of the road in the interest of safety. The IMA was signed back in July, and villagers have become impatient with the pace of the deal. Winterton Road is busy and an increase in pedestrian traffic along the shoulder has raised fears of an accident.

Another Clerk Resigns

After being absent for two weeks while recovering from COVID-19, the village’s new clerk Yvonn Thorburn has resigned, Wood said. Thorburn, who replaced Alyssa Freeman late last year, had been given high marks from village officials during her short stint on the job. Although Village Hall will remain closed until a replacement is hired, various village officials are monitoring the phones and mail. Wood even provided his cell phone number, 845-283-2827, and invited people to call him to request free home rapid COVID-19 test kits. The village received its first batch of 20 kits, each containing two tests, from Sullivan County. They will be available free of charge on a first-come, first-serve basis, Wood said. Some kits were passed out to people who attended Monday’s meeting, including representatives of the Hatzalah ambulance corps. County Legislator Nicholas Salomone Jr., R-District 4, said that the county would soon distribute more kits, according to Wood.