If you've driven south on McCall Road past Bay Heights these last four years, you've seen the fence. A flat, cleared lot where a bank used to sit, with a drive-thru still running off to the side like it forgot the rest of the building was gone. It's the kind of empty parcel you stop noticing after a while, the way you stop noticing a missing tooth on a familiar face. Then in late August, something changed. Crews came out, dug the first shovel of dirt, and put a sign up announcing a new building.
Here's the part most people driving past won't know. The bank that used to stand there hasn't technically existed since September 2023. Englewood Bank & Trust, the name on the old building since 1988, was formally retired more than two years before the demolition crew even showed up. What's rebuilding on that corner carries a different name, even though the people behind the counter, and the community relationships built over decades, mostly didn't change at all.
Four Years of a Fenced Lot
The timeline starts with Hurricane Ian. The branch at 1111 S. McCall Road closed at noon on September 27, 2022, the day before the storm made a nearly direct hit on the area. The roof gave out and water damage followed, leaving the building unsafe to occupy. The drive-thru reopened that January after nearly four months closed, using a generator at first, but the main building behind it sat empty.
It didn't sit unused, though. Before demolition, the Englewood Area Fire Control District used the storm-damaged structure for training exercises, vertical ventilation on a commercial roof, hose deployment, command communication drills, the kind of practice that only comes from having a real building to work with instead of a simulator. So for roughly two years, the ruined bank quietly became a training ground for the same firefighters who'd respond to the next emergency on that stretch of McCall Road.
Demolition itself didn't start until January 2025, well after the first announcement in September 2024 said it was "expected to begin soon." That gap matters, because it's the first sign that this project has consistently taken longer than each update suggested.
At the groundbreaking ceremony on August 26, Joe Cataldo, area president for Englewood-Boca Grande, put it plainly:
"Four years ago, almost to the day, Hurricane Ian came through and devastated this community and many of our customers."
The Bank Rebuilding Here Isn't the Bank That Closed
This is the detail that gets lost in the "storm damage, now rebuilding" version of the story. Englewood Bank & Trust wasn't just renamed for marketing reasons. Until 2023, the bank operated as one of four separate, family-owned institutions under common ownership: Englewood Bank & Trust, Charlotte State Bank & Trust, Wauchula State Bank, and Crews Bank & Trust. In the fall of 2023, all four unified under the Crews Bank & Trust name, and Englewood Bank & Trust's institutional charter was formally retired that September.
That means for the past three years, anyone using the drive-thru at 1111 S. McCall Road has technically been banking at Crews Bank & Trust, even if the sign, the habit, and the conversation with neighbors still say "the Englewood bank." Wauchula State Bank opened in 1929, and the Crews family acquired a controlling interest in 1932, the start of an ownership run that now spans four generations. The Englewood branch's rebuild is being led by that same family ownership group, which now oversees 19 branches across Central and Southwest Florida. The corner isn't losing a locally-owned bank to outside consolidation. It already went through that consolidation quietly, years before the building itself came back.
What the Timeline Actually Looked Like
Public announcements about this project have consistently undersold how long it would take. Laid out in order:
- September 27, 2022: Branch closes ahead of Hurricane Ian.
- October 3, 2022: Nearby Venice and Gulf Cove branches reopen; the McCall Road building does not.
- January 23, 2023: The standalone drive-thru reopens after nearly four months closed.
- September 2024: Crews announces demolition has started at its Arcadia North branch and is "expected to begin soon" in Englewood.
- January 2025: Demolition actually begins on the Englewood building. A contemporaneous construction trade report projects both the Arcadia and Englewood branches will be "fully constructed by late 2025 or early 2026."
- February 2026: A Crews executive tells the company's own newsroom the Englewood opening is now expected "early winter to early 2027."
- August 26, 2026: Groundbreaking ceremony finally held. New completion target: fall 2027.
Each checkpoint pushed the estimate further out. What was floated as a late-2025 or early-2026 opening in one update had become a fall-2027 target by the time dirt actually moved. None of that is unusual for construction that follows hurricane damage and insurance timelines, but it's worth knowing if you've been assuming this corner would be back to normal any month now.
What's Actually Going Up
The new building will be a single story, 4,620 square feet, with a connected drive-thru replacing the standalone one that's been running since the storm. The most distinct addition is a courtyard with a pergola, built specifically to host events like Chamber of Commerce mixers on site, something the old building never had.
Crews is rebuilding its Arcadia North branch on the same schedule with the same construction team, DMK Engineering of Venice, Cool and Cobb Engineering of Avon Park, and L. Cobb Construction of Wauchula. That branch is getting different amenities entirely: off-street parking sized for large vehicles and a tank for the branch's tropical fish. It's a reminder that these aren't identical buildings stamped out from a template. Each community got a design suited to how people actually use the branch, and Englewood's answer was outdoor gathering space.
This is also happening while Crews is expanding, not retrenching. The company recently opened its first Fort Myers branch at The Park Shops at Andrea Lane, with additional branches planned for Tampa and Orlando in early 2027. The Englewood rebuild is one project inside a company that's actively growing its footprint, which is a different story than a struggling institution patching up storm damage because it has no other choice.
Why This Particular Corner Sticks Around
Englewood's downtown identity was built on Dearborn Street, platted in 1896 by the Nichols brothers and named for their hometown of Englewood, Illinois. For most of the town's history, Dearborn Street was where locals experienced the community's institutional firsts, its earliest bank included. McCall Road came later as the town's commercial spine shifted, and Englewood Bank staked its ground there in 1988, becoming the kind of fixture that earns "Best Local Bank" recognition from its own customers for over two decades running, according to the bank's own account of its history.
That's the pattern worth noticing. Englewood keeps losing its anchor institutions to storms, time, and corporate restructuring, and it keeps getting them back in some form, usually run by people who've been in the building for twenty years already. Larry McLaren, Crews Bank's chief banking officer, started his own banking career at this exact branch 22 years ago. The name changed. The person who watched the wall come down did not.
What Changes for You Now
Nothing changes about how you bank there today. The drive-thru at 1111 S. McCall Road, accessible from Bay Heights Road off McCall, keeps running through construction the same way it has since January 2023. What's different is that there's now a fenced construction site instead of a fenced empty lot, and a real target date, fall 2027, for when the corner has a full building again.
If the last four years are any guide, treat that date as a floor, not a ceiling. But the shovels are finally in the ground, and the next time someone asks what's going on at McCall and Bay Heights, you'll have the actual answer instead of a shrug.
Curious what else is changing across Englewood while the town rebuilds corner by corner? The Florida Living Team keeps a close eye on the ground-level stuff, not just the listings. Reach out anytime, Let's Get Started.
