Officials decline comment on LaSalle replacement
No plans for Washington Mutual, Harris Bank to take over branch
By Dan Strumpf
The Daily Northwestern
A day after LaSalle Bank announced that it will close its branch at Norris University Center in June, Northwestern officials have declined to comment on why the branch is leaving NU or whether a different bank will take its place.
“I have nothing definitive to report at this time,” said Eugene Sunshine, NU’s vice president of business and finance.
Other NU officials, including Brian Peters, director of university services, have declined to comment on whether another bank will replace LaSalle or the reason behind LaSalle’s departure. Shawn Platt, LaSalle’s public relations director, offered no new information on the issue either.
Steven Karlin, manager of both LaSalle’s Norris branch and the branch at 1336 Chicago Ave. — where NU accounts will be transferred in June, according to a letter from LaSalle Bank to customers — did not return repeated phone calls Wednesday.
“It definitely warrants more of an explanation,” said McCormick senior Aamer Ali, who has been a LaSalle customer for all of his four years at NU. “The only reason I had an account with LaSalle was because they were with Northwestern.”
Music sophomore Jason Rosenbaum said he closed his account with LaSalle Wednesday after learning that the bank would be closing its on-campus location.
Some students who already were unhappy with the service of the LaSalle branch in Norris said they were not bothered when they found out the branch would be leaving NU.
“LaSalle was pretty low in the hierarchy of banks,” said Jennifer Mo, a Weinberg sophomore. “The quality of LaSalle as a bank is kind of poor in my opinion.”
Other LaSalle customers who rarely used the Norris branch said the bank’s departure will have little effect on them.
LaSalle’s announcement to leave NU comes just five years after replacing First Chicago/Bank One in 1999 as the university’s banking partner. LaSalle then took over all of the on-campus ATMs owned by Bank One.
LaSalle has entered into a few short-term contracts with other universities and businesses in the Chicago area in the past.
In 2001, LaSalle entered into a four-year partnership with the City Colleges of Chicago and in 2000 it entered a five-year partnership with the supermarket chain Delray Farms.
Officials with the Chicago-based Harris Bank and Seattle-based Washington Mutual will not be replacing LaSalle, officials with the two institutions told The Daily on Wednesday.
