Credit Unions Building in New Member Areas
An Iowa and a Florida credit union are opening branches in areas recently added to their fields of membership.
Corda Credit Union of Iowa and Eglin Federal Credit Union of Florida have announced plans this month to expand into new fields of membership with new branches.
Corda Credit Union announced July 18 it will expand beyond Linn County, Iowa for the first time by opening a new branch next year in neighboring Johnson County.
The branch in North Liberty, 20 miles south of its Cedar Rapids headquarters, is scheduled to open in late 2025. Solum Lang Architects of Cedar Rapids designed the 5,046-square-foot branch, which includes drive-thru lanes, an ATM and interactive teller machines (ITMs).
“We couldn’t be more thrilled with the location. We feel like it’s the perfect spot for our new branch,” President/CEO Paula O’Rourke said in a July 18 news release. “The branch will be easy to access, no matter if you’re driving, biking or walking, and it’s surrounded by several businesses that have a broad appeal to area residents.”
The credit union ($669.6 million in assets, 25,999 members as of March 31) changed its name in May from Linn Area Credit Union to reflect a field of membership that has broadened to include 21 other Iowa counties. NCUA data showed Corda had its headquarters and four branches on March 31, all in Linn County.
Eglin Federal Credit Union of Fort Walton Beach, Fla. ($2.9 billion in assets, 124,053 members) celebrated the opening of its branch in Freeport July 11. The Freeport branch is the credit union’s first full-service branch in Walton County, where the credit union has 30,000 members and its field of membership was expanded this year to include seven Census tracts in the county.
Eglin FCU also has an ATM with a video teller drive-thru elsewhere in the county that opened in July 2023. It followed the opening of its Pace Branch in April — its third in Santa Rosa County, where the credit union has about 15,000 members. In early 2024 the NCUA approved expanding Eglin FCU’s field of membership to include parts of Santa Rosa and Escambia counties in Florida, plus Escambia County, Alabama.
La Macchia Group of Milwaukee is the design/build firm for the 4,400-square-feet Freeport and Pace branches, and an operations center in Fort Walton Beach it expects to complete later this year.
NCUA data showed Eglin FCU had 11 locations March 31.
Other branch expansions announced this month included:
- Lafayette Federal Credit Union of Rockville, Md. ($2 billion in assets, 57411 members) celebrated the opening of its Greenbelt branch July 10. The NCUA showed the credit union had nine locations on March 31.
- BECU of Tukwila, Wash., in the Seattle area ($30.2 billion in assets, 1.5 million members) announced plans July 25 to open its fourth branch in the Spokane, Wash., area in the first quarter of 2025.
Jason Rudman, EVP and chief member and digital experience officer at BECU, said the 4,000-square-foot branch will enhance the credit union’s service to its 24,000 members in the area.
“BECU has been a proud partner to the Spokane community for two decades and expanded that commitment with our first financial center in 2016,” Rudman said. “We are delighted to strengthen our presence in Spokane that gives us an opportunity to further understand and act on the community’s unique and evolving needs as we strive to empower our members on their journeys to financial freedom.”
NCUA data showed BECU had 62 branches and other locations on March 31, two more than a year earlier.