When the merger between Old Second National Bank and West Suburban Bank took place late last year, it left Aurora in an interesting situation.
The same banking company now has two large bank buildings within a couple of blocks of each other downtown.
It left most people with the thought that something would have to give.
Aurora-based Old Second Bancorp Inc. completed its merger with West Suburban Bancorp Inc. in December 2021. At the same time, West Suburban’s subsidiary bank, West Suburban Bank, merged into Old Second’s subsidiary bank, Old Second National Bank.
Officially, Old Second officials are not discussing the future of the buildings right now, and are not making any announcements.
But it is obvious from the sign listing the current West Suburban Bank building at New York and Lake streets on the near West Side for sale that the current situation will not last.
“Anyone can see a for sale sign on the West Suburban building,” said Don Pilmer, an Old Second bank official who is also the chairman of Aurora’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
There are other signs – perhaps not as obvious but just as evident – that the West Suburban Bank would be the one to leave downtown.
Old Second has a long history in Aurora. Founded in 1871, just 14 years after Aurora was incorporated, Old Second National Bank was the first downtown bank along the Fox River and is Aurora’s longest-running business, city officials have said.
As the population of the city grew in the 1920s, Old Second hired Chicago architect George Elmslie in 1924 to construct the main bank branch at Downer Place and River Street downtown.
The building remains as one of five historic Elmslie buildings in Aurora, four of them downtown.
“We’ve been here since the 1920s, we are an Aurora-based bank,” Pilmer said.
Another evident change downtown is the block the West Suburban Bank is on.
It is now included in an eight block area – bounded by Lake Street, New York Street, River Street and View Street – known by city officials as the Westside Riverfront sub-area.
The city is looking at it as an eventual redevelopment area, including multi-family housing and other mixed uses, a sort of new neighborhood in downtown.
The city has entered into a redevelopment agreement with a company building a $53.8 million, 160-unit apartment project at the base of the new pedestrian bridge that crosses to RiverEdge Park on the east bank of the river.
That development is across the street and just to the north of the West Suburban Bank building.
