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Charlotte County-based Calusa Bank's recent successful growth in Venice has gone so well executives hope to move even further north into Sarasota County in 2015.
The next location, projects Calusa Bank President Todd Katz, will be in downtown Sarasota, likely sometime in 2015. Katz tells Coffee Talk the bank's October expansion in Venice, from a loan production office to a full-service branch, “is going better than expected. It's being very well received.”
Founded in 2007, Calusa has had an office in Sarasota County, in North Port, for five years. The $166.7 million asset bank has two Charlotte County locations, one in Port Charlotte and a headquarters in Punta Gorda.
Katz says good timing has boosted the expansion in Venice: In late 2013, Fort Lauderdale-based Stonegate Bank acquired Florida Shores Bank, what was the only community bank with a Venice headquarters. Calusa, says Katz, has picked up some of the business clients who left Florida Shores after the deal. Says Katz: “Business to business is our expertise.”
Katz and the senior leadership team at Calusa will deal with another major change early next year. Calusa CEO Lew Albert, who co-founded the bank with Katz, will retire at the end of 2014. Katz and Albert co-founded Tarpon Coast Bank in Punta Gorda in 1999, built it, and then sold it in 2005 to Busey Bank for $35 million. Katz and Albert have worked together since 1993.
Moving on without Albert, says Katz, will be an interesting challenge. “I've been married to him in business life longer than my wife,” says Katz. “My oldest daughter is 18 and she's always known me as working with Lew.”
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