BEDFORD – A ribbon cutting was hosted on Monday at the former Regions Bank in Bedford, located at 1501 J St., unveiling the property’s new identity after over a century as a bank.
Now named The Banx on J, the property will serve as office space for multiple local businesses. In the future, owner Anthony Webb said he plans to utilize other floors of the building for rentable apartments.
“So currently, we have our state approvals for apartments on the top three floors and that’s been our plan for a while, but we also have more businesses that are interested in office space. So we’re probably going to take the next floor up maybe and turn that into more office space. And then the top two floors might be apartments for downtown,” said Webb.
Webb said the new name, which he credited his wife for coming up with, was chosen as a way to acknowledge the building’s long history in the community as a bank.
“To keep the connection and the history of the bank is what we want,” he said.
In the name of honoring the history of the building, much it if was kept the same during the renovation process.
Maintaining the historic elements of a storied property, while trying to modernize it to appeal to current-day renters can be a difficult balance.
“It’s a little tricky because obviously, you have some things you have to have modernized for it to even function really,” said Webb.
One example Webb provided was the bank’s teller line, which was replaced with space for current businesses that will utilize the space.
“We took the boxes that separated every teller line. We cut those down, we built a wall but we put those boxes back into place. So now when you look at it, it looks like how the old teller line was, but now it’s all conference rooms and offices and stuff. So we tried to tie the two together and make it functional for today,” he noted.
Though the renovations have been an ongoing process, the new identity of the building has been kept a secret until Monday.
At the time of the ribbon cutting, a new sign on the front of the building had already been installed, concealed by a black tarp, which blocked residents from seeing the new name prematurely.
As one could imagine, keeping this all a secret through the installation of a 24-foot-long sign in the middle of a busy street wasn’t easy.
“Quickly, and they did it at a time when offices were closed,” Webb said, explaining how the sign was installed without the eyes of the public. “The downtown area was kind of closed, in fact, originally they had said ‘we’ll put the sign up, the box part up’ and then they said ‘we’ll come back at two in the morning and put the face on’ but it worked out and they didn’t have to, they just did it. And then, as soon as they got it on the covered it quickly. There were a few people who saw it because I got a couple of text messages that said ‘hey, we saw it.’ I was like, well, it is what it is. But the majority of the people didn’t see.”
Overall, Webb is pleased to have the building now open.
“It’s a really neat feeling and it’s really cool to have all of these people come out from the community and the connections, it’s really neat,” he said.
