American Commercial Bank Expands to Downtown Camarillo

For the first time in its nearly 25 years, American Commercial Bank has branched out beyond Ventura city limits.

The community bank, which has three branches in Ventura, opened a loan production and business development office in downtown Camarillo at a Ventura Boulevard site formerly occupied by Bank of A. Levy.

Bank officials plan to establish a full-service branch at the location within a year.

“American Commercial Bank has been looking to expand our marketplace to other areas of Ventura County, and the logical place is the Oxnard-Camarillo area,” said Jeff Paul, American Commercial’s executive vice president. “We already have quite a few customers who reside there.”

The new office, American Commercial’s first in 12 years, will be staffed by Jerry Lukiewski, who will serve as regional vice president, and Carol Wright, former vice president and manager of American Commercial’s Telephone Road branch. The bank also is in the process of hiring an administrative assistant.

The site, with an existing vault, drive-up window and space for an automated teller machine, was an ideal spot for American Commercial, Paul said. Bank of A. Levy closed in early 1995 when it was bought out by First Interstate Bank, which subsequently merged with Wells Fargo.

American Commercial signed a pair of six-month leases for the space with the goal of establishing a large enough clientele to switch to a full-service branch by the end of the second lease, and expand into adjacent office space.

“One of our goals is to establish ourselves as a bank for local small- and medium-sized business,” Paul said. “Then after we get the [full] branch open, we will offer the same type of business we do in our other branches--geared to individuals and consumers for all types of consumer loans.”

Paul, a former regional manager with Bank of A. Levy, said the new office will most likely get its clientele from Oxnard as well as Camarillo. And if all goes as planned, he said, American Commercial will spread even farther into the county in the near future.

“If this project works as we hope it will, our plans are to look at Oxnard, Moorpark and the Thousand Oaks area” for expansion, Paul said. “We feel the mergers and consolidations of banks have created a vacuum of sorts for people who want a community bank.”

American Commercial has assets of $125 million.