U.S. Bank's branch on West Broadway reopens after last year's riots

After being severely damaged in last year's riots, the U.S. Bank branch on West Broadway in Minneapolis shifted operations to an RV in the parking lot. When winter arrived, the branch's five employees moved to temporary space next door.

Finally, last month, they began work in refurbished digs — a slightly smaller, more modern and technologically-advanced branch.

It includes the features of U.S. Bank's newest branch design such as digital workstations with tablets, ATMs that can handle most transactions and several glass-walled offices where customers can pop in to sit down and speak with a banker.

"We made it a lot more efficient, more well laid out for the customers, with a lot of great technology," said Ravie Singh, the branch manager. "It's one of our top of the line branches."

He added that customers appreciate that they don't have to drive out to the suburbs to see something so new and updated.

"We have that in our community now," he said.

The north Minneapolis branch has some extra local touches. Murals featuring diverse faces adorn the exterior as well as a wall of a conference room. They were created by Juxtaposition Arts, a nonprofit arts group located across the street.

The branch is just starting to spread the word that the conference room is also available for community groups. The West Broadway Business and Area Coalition, which Singh is on the board of, is already planning to use it for meetings.

"We are invested in this community and this branch symbolizes that," Tim Welsh, the Minneapolis-based bank's vice chairman of consumer and business banking, said earlier this week during its grand opening festivities. "This is how we want to show up."

In addition to other essential businesses such as grocery stores and pharmacies, about a dozen banks around the Lake Street and West Broadway business corridors were damaged in last year's riots following the murder of George Floyd. Some branches were able to reopen within a matter of weeks. Others that sustained more damage remained shuttered for months.

Some have now reopened. But more than a year later, a handful are still either being rebuilt or are still in the planning stages.

In April, TCF Bank, reopened two in-store branches inside of the Cub Foods on West Broadway and Lake Street, which were the most severely damaged in its network.

Wells Fargo's two branches that suffered the most damage were both along Lake Street and have not yet reopened. The company decided to move the branch near Hiawatha Avenue to about a half-mile away. That location is expected to open in September.

Meanwhile, its burned-down branch at Lake and Nicollet is being redeveloped into a larger multi-use project with Project for Pride in Living. It will include affordable housing, commercial spaces and the new Wells Fargo branch. Construction is expected to begin next year, with the branch tentatively slated to open by late 2023.

As for U.S. Bank, it has two more branches along Lake Street that are slated to reopen this winter. The Minneapolis-based bank decided to relocate and downsize one of the damaged branches to a former Tim Horton's spot. It is planning to donate the land of the former location for a still-to-be-determined mixed-use project.

In the meantime, a double wide trailer has been set up as a temporary branch on the site of the old location.

Construction has begun to rebuild U.S. bank's other destroyed branch further west on Lake Street across from the Midtown Global Market. That branch, which will also feature the bank's newest look, will be one of the company's larger flagship locations with mortgage,

business banking and wealth management teams housed on site, said Tom Zirbs, consumer and banking market leader for the Twin Cities.

As they rebuild the branches, executives assessed not just how they want them to look and feel, but also how much space they need. Customers visit branches less frequently and do more routine transactions through banking apps or ATMs.

The West Broadway branch, for example, was pared back to 4,000 square feet from 6,000.

"This space is more right not just for where we are today, but where we're going in the future," said Zirbs.

At the same time, the West Broadway branch still gets a lot of traffic from people coming in to make transactions. So while U.S. Bank has gotten rid of the teller line altogether in some of its newest branches, U.S. Bank decided to instead to cut the number of teller stations in half to three at that location.

Its drive-up ATM in the parking lot was also one of the busiest in the market, so the company added a second one.

"We're still reaching out to customers letting them know we're back and open for business," said Singh. "As things are starting to get back to more normal, we're starting to see more activity in the branch."

Steve Tiedens, who usually stops by the West Broadway branch twice a week to make deposits, gave high marks to the new space.

"I love it because it's not so big," he said. "This is more convenient."

Kevin Wylie, who has been going to the branch for 15 years agreed.

"It's more cozy and not as jampacked," he said.