MYSITE TEASE
FOLLOWING THE STORY: Coverage of the former l'Auberge restaurant site and its path to becoming a bank branch is available on our subscriber website, mydaytondailynews.com
Fifth Third Bank this week purchased the former l’Auberge restaurant at 4120 Far Hills Ave. in Kettering for nearly $1.3 million and plans to demolish the building and build a new branch office there.
Fifth Third currently operates a banking office inside the nearby Town & Country Shopping Center. Bank spokesman Jeff Kursman said Wednesday the existing bank location will close when the new, freestanding branch with a drive-through window opens. Fifth Third officials hope to complete the project on or before May 2014, when the lease on Fifth Third’s existing branch inside the shopping center expires, Kursman said.
Plans call for razing the existing structure that housed l’Auberge and building a 3,071-square-foot bank branch, according to plans submitted to and approved by the Kettering City Planning Commission.
The location is a few hundred feet from an existing PNC bank branch that is located in an outlot on the west end of Town & Country center near Stroop Road and Far Hills Avenue.
The former l’Auberge property was purchased in February by Covington, Ky.-based Anchor Properties for $800,000. Montgomery County property records show that Fifth Third Bank purchased the one-acre property from Anchor Properties on Monday for $1,272,000. The county had assessed the property at $630,800, county records show.
The upscale l’Auberge, which opened in 1979, closed in early 2012 after Lebanon, Ohio-based LCNB National Bank foreclosed on the restaurant and took possession of the property. LCNB first started foreclosure proceedings in 2010, claiming l’Auberge defaulted on three mortgage notes and owed the bank more than $1.6 million.
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