Credit Union to Raise Flag Atop Former Bank Tower

Truliant Federal Credit Union, founded 71 years ago in Winston-Salem, N.C., plans to put its name on the city’s skyline atop an office tower built as the headquarters of a bank that grew to become one of the nation’s largest – before it went bust.

Truliant, with its $4.4 billion in assets and 308,544 members, is now the largest financial institution based in Winston-Salem, and by late July Truliant expects its name will be visible in letters 10 feet high and 100 feet long above the 29-story building now called the Winston Tower.

The sign will feature Truliant’s yellow sunburst and “TRULIANT” in letters that change from blue during the day to white when illuminated at night.

“Having served our hometown for more than 70 years, we’re honored that Truliant’s sunburst will proudly shine on our city,” President/CEO Todd Hall said. “As a recognized name with a long legacy of outstanding service, it will further solidify our position as a source of brighter banking.”

Truliant leases a small amount of space in the tower at 301 N. Main St. Its headquarters remains at 3200 Truliant Way, five miles southwest of the tower. In January, it began moving some of its employees into an operations center it built in a former Macy’s department store at the Hanes Mall across the street from its headquarters.

Truliant now has about 30 branches in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. It plans to open a branch later this year in Lexington, N.C., about 25 miles south of Winston-Salem.

Wachovia was the largest bank in Winston-Salem when it built its 29-story headquarters in 1966, then the tallest in the state. In about 1995 it moved out to occupy a palatial building it erected two blocks down the street rising 34 stories. The bank participated in the wave of bank mergers that made it among the nation’s largest by 2001 with $72.1 billion in assets.

Then Wachovia itself was bought in September 2001 by First Union of Charlotte, which kept the Wachovia name and moved the headquarters to Charlotte. The surviving version of Wachovia continued merging like a maniac, along the way gobbling up a California bank with a deep portfolio of adjustable-rate mortgages at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006.

Those mortgages soured when the bubble burst in 2007, and by the end of 2008, Wells Fargo had agreed to buy Wachovia to prevent a government takeover.