Gaining Ground: Banker isn’t expecting much real estate business for now

Gastonia banker Don Harrison has been promoted, but despite the new title, he won’t be enjoying a new office.

“I didn’t have to change chairs. I just have new responsibilities,” said Harrison, who is now the head of the consumer banking division at CommunityOne Bank.

The division gives out commercial real estate loans. And Harrison is the guy to whom developers would want to speak for financing. But Harrison figures real estate development is not likely going to be the biggest part of his job in the downturned economy.

His promotion announcement comes on the heels of the $310 million merger between CommunityOne and Bank of Granite in October.

Harrison has plenty of experience transitioning through bank mergers.

A University of Georgia graduate with an undergraduate degree in business and a master of business administration in finance, he worked with CNS Bank for 11 years after college and then First Union, which later became Wachovia, in Asheville and Roanoke, Va., until 2004.

After retiring from Wachovia in 2004, he took the position of president of the First Gaston Bank in Gastonia. FGB became CommunityOne following a merger with First National Bank of Asheboro.

The Georgia native said he’s worked throughout the Southeast but “can’t get too far from my roots.”

With the latest merger, CommunityOne will have new territory to cover, including three offices in Mecklenburg County, an area the bank previously didn’t cover in its market.

For the CommunityOne franchise, Harrison covers western territory that includes the Interstate 77 corridor west of Mecklenburg,

Iredell, Gaston and Catawba counties, and the northwestern area of Burke, Caldwell, Watauga, Wilkes and Ashe counties.

Harrison said he is excited to meet prospective clients in those counties and will focus on the commercial line of business, primarily with small to midsized operating companies and the real estate those companies own or want to own.

He said he’s seeing signs the economy is improving.

“There’s a heartbeat and it’s getting stronger. It’s a great time for us to be getting back into the market.”

He’s had calls from customers
asking about purchasing buildings for expansion and others seeking franchising opportunities or considering the purchase of equipment from a competitor.

“People are starting to turn the corner, and I think they see this as a buying opportunity,” he said. “They’re trying to acquire real estate and buy equipment and reposition themselves.

For those business owners who hear that banks are not lending, Harrison said that’s not true at CommunityOne.

“We are looking to lend money,” he said. “We have growth goals next year (2012), and we are expecting to start meeting those in January.”

Harrison and his wife Susan have two children and two grandchildren. He lives in Gastonia when he is not traveling, which he does

extensively.

Harrison will lead the bank’s consumer division along with Asheboro’s Greg Spainhour.

– TARA RAMSEY

HIRES AND
PROMOTIONS

Charlotte-based Studio
Fusion has hired Alison Hall as a project architect.

Allen Tate at Providence
said Brock Boone, Kelly Schoenborn and Cynthia Pensiero have been hired as
associates.

Charlotte-based Crescent
Resources’ board of managers has appointed Todd Mansfield president and CEO. Mansfield had served as lead director for the company. The board also named Dan Van Epp as its nonexecutive chairman. Van Epp is executive vice president of San Diego-based Newland Real Estate Group and president of The Van Epp Cos, which has offices in Las Vegas and Phoenix. He has served Crescent as a director since early 2011.

DEALS

Rush Dunaway and Robert Percival, brokers with Charlotte-based Percival McGuire Commercial Real Estate, have completed the UPS land sale
involving a 79-acre parcel at 7101 Wilkinson Blvd. The city of Charlotte bought the land for $2.52 million for future airport expansion at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport and a runway-protection zone.

Deane True, of Charlotte Metro Credit Union, has funded a refinance request for investment property in Mint Hill. The property’s location was not disclosed. The $688,000 transaction paid off an existing loan of $163,000, disbursed $320,000 to the borrower for property

improvements and provided an additional $200,000 line of credit for other development properties in Matthews.

Charlotte-based Grubb
Properties, a real estate development and management firm, has brokered a four-year lease between Active Life Chiropractic and Colony at Williams Pond for 1,288 square feet of office space in Charlotte’s Highway 51 commercial 

submarket. The lease brings the occupancy at Colony to 100 percent. Kara Schroer and Amanda Ward, of Grubb Properties, represented the
landlord, Colony, and Bobby Davis of Charlotte-based SouthEast Commercial Real Estate Group, represented the tenant.

Stephen Woodward and Bailey Patrick, of Charlotte-based Merrifield Patrick Vermillion, represented landlord Marsh Bissell Patrick in attracting new tenants to Providence Park, a Class A office park in south Charlotte: Aceyus, represented by John Stipp, of Office Properties, has leased 1,746 square feet; EastPay has leased 1,066 square feet, but their representative was not disclosed; MSIGHTS, represented by Vince Sumner, of NAI Southern Real Estate, has leased leased 871 square feet; and Checkpoint
Systems, represented by Bryan White, of Jones Lang LaSalle, has leased 15,681 square feet.

AWARDS

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers and the I Make America campaign have awarded Charlotte-based International Construction Equipment the Pillar of the Industry award. ICE, which has offices worldwide, designs, manufactures, sells, services and rents products used to make foundations for roads, bridges and buildings.