Fearing a Bank Desert, Buckeye Residents Tell Huntington It Can't Leave

The notice for Buckeye-Shaker neighbors came in early February: the Huntington Bank branch that sat right off East 117th Street and Buckeye Road would be closing in the spring. Crime was a growing issue in the area, they said. Thirty-four other branches across the state would follow suit for similar reasons. And most would close.

That is, except the branch in Buckeye.

Shortly after Huntington's announcement, a burgeoning group of locals and public interest groups rallied to deter—and change the minds of—the regional powers that be at the Columbus-based financial institution.

For months, this group of adamant locals have gathered hundreds of signatures, worked with Cleveland police on a half-mile "safety quadrant," and agreed to meet with vice president of community development Donald Dennis to do their best to convince Huntington they're better off staying and servicing their customers.

Customers that, nearby resident and advocate Tamara Chappell said, rely on still having a brick and mortar close by to manage their mortgages, deposit physical checks, chat about car loans.
[content-2] "This still a community where people have flip phones, and they don't do online banking," Chappell, 70, who lives close to Moreland Courts off Shaker Square, told Scene. "Buckeye is not a dot-com area. Mount Pleasant area is not a dot-com area. People here still go to the bank."

Like the wave of pharmacies and grocery stores that have given up on certain neighborhoods across the U.S., either due to bankruptcy or Amazon, a bank leaving a block has similar consequences. Elderly and handicapped folks, and those without cars, have to consult neighbors for rides. Others have to increase already long bus commutes just to complete errands on-time.

It's the gist of what the Buckeye coalition has tried, they said, to tell Huntington: leaving due to so-called crime concerns or better investments elsewhere have larger issues than they realize.

For Charles Bromley, the director of the Shaker Square Alliance and organizer of this group, a sneaking suspicion has crept up on him since February—that bank directors have used "crime" as a red herring, he said, to distract the public.

Speaking up, forming connections with the Shaker Square Alliance and Neighborhood Connection, involving City Hall and City Council, returning letters and texts with truth telling and heated complaints -- this, he said, is what the group's done differently that the 33 other neighborhoods Huntington's pull-out as affected.

"I don't think the bank ever been challenged, to be honest," Bromley said. "They get to do whatever they want to. They have $184 billion in deposits.

"Well, they figured that you bring a check and everybody goes away," he added. "And that wasn't really the case here."

After three months of meetings and back-and-forths with Dennis, Bromley, activist Julian Khan and Neighborhood Connection's Greg Groves filmed a twelve-minute mini-documentary called "Rallying for Huntington Bank," as a followup to their gathering of 700-plus signatures.

In it, residents like Chappell help put a human face to disinvestment, as do local owners of nearby barbershops and clothing stores. Those that do business with the branch across the street.

"And Huntington is trying to sever that business," Khan says in the video, "by closing and walking away."

But has the area gotten safer, as some suggest? Though Scene couldn't confirm it with CPD's Fourth District, all parties interviewed claimed that the half-mile quadrant of increased police presence helped solve what was Huntington's main issue.

The data's more complicated. From March 1 to July 23, there were 1,871 crimes total in Ward 6, the ward Buckeye-Shaker's in—an increase of about 70 crimes, according to the city's data portal.

Though weapons charges and burglaries went up from the same time period in 2023, traffic violations, drug abuse, traffic violations and felonious assault charges did diminish.

Which is another point of contention for Chappell, who had gone to the branch for years for loan management and, she said, to buy pies a nearby neighbor was selling.

"Nobody was bothering the bank. People were sitting in the parking lot drinking booze that they bought at the liquor store across the street," she said. "You know, you have panhandlers at the Vatican."

Donald Dennis, that vice president of community development at Huntington, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Tuesday.

Huntington will have, residents said, an answer as to the branch's sure future come August 10. [content-1]

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter