Huntington recently withdrew its application with bank regulators to permanently close the Buckeye Road branch in Cleveland, but this isn’t proof it will remain open, according to the bank.

Huntington officials said the Buckeye branch will still close Feb. 9 and that the plan it announced in mid-January is still in effect. The plan includes the option of reopening the branch in six months if the bank, working with the city, can come up with a strategy to address crime in the area, which Huntington said has placed employees and customers at risk.

Despite this, a residents’ committee fighting the branch’s permanent closing views the withdrawn application as an early sign of victory.

On Jan. 24, Huntington withdrew the application that it had filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) last fall to permanently close the branch. If there had been a way to file a temporary closing application, the bank would have done that, said Kris Dahl, regional communications manager for Huntington.

“[W]hile there’s no formal process to communicate a temporary closure to the OCC, we have shared our updated plans with them,” he wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland. “While we have withdrawn the initial filing, nothing has changed in our plans since the last time we updated you.”

In mid-January Huntington said the ATM at the branch would remain open. There would also be limited access to the building. This could possibly include access for Huntington-sponsored programs, such as those focused on home repair and entrepreneurship for area residents.

Still, Keep Huntington on Buckeye, the residents’ committee, views the withdrawn application in optimistic terms. The committee began circulating an email on Wednesday, including to the more than 700 people who had signed their petition to keep the bank from closing.

“Good News,” it begins, all in capital letters. “The voice of over 700 people was heard.”

“Huntington now references its Buckeye plan as [a] ‘temporary closure,’ the email states. “What does that mean? Only time will disclose, but we hope that means Huntington will continue meeting with various stakeholders about the needs of our neighborhoods.”

Residents want public meeting with bank regulator

Keep Huntington on Buckeye is also trying to get the OCC to hold a public meeting on the branch closing. The committee recently sent an email to this independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury making the request.

“We believe that our ideas can be best presented in a forum convened by your office for the diligent, earnest and probing exchange of ideas and views on this subject,” the committee wrote.

Committee members, including Mary Boyle and Robert L. Render, said OCC hasn’t yet responded to schedule a meeting. Officials from the independent bureau wouldn’t confirm with Signal Cleveland whether a meeting would be scheduled.

“The OCC is in receipt of comments concerning the notice of branch closure for the Buckeye Road Huntington Bank location,” an OCC spokesperson wrote. “The OCC participated in a public meeting in the Shaker Square Alliance Meeting on December 7, 2023, to discuss the notice of branch closure. Please be advised that the OCC does not comment on non-public meetings.”

For now, committee members such as Render are savoring what they consider to be the victory of Huntington withdrawing the branch closing application. He delights in even the subtle changes he said he has seen since the application was withdrawn.

For example, Render said the branch initially notified him that he had to clean out his safe deposit box by the end of January. When he went to clean it out then, a bank employee told him, “That’s no longer necessary.”

“I believe that the closed branch is going to be reopened,” Render said. “If it hadn’t been for the committee, they would have closed the branch and that would have been the end of it. This is a testimony to what little people can do if they organize and stick together.”