The latest bank geared to Orange County’s Chinese-Americans has settled on a remote business strip of cat doctors and auto mechanics next to the Tustin Metrolink train station.
But EverTrust Bank, a 10-year-old privately held bank, is betting it’s picked the right spot for growth, said Veronica Chen, corporate secretary for the Industry-based bank.
“Our location is somewhat remote from the Chinese-American community (in Irvine), but in one to two years there may be a housing development across the street,” Chen said.
For now, the center of OC’s Chinese-American banking is at Irvine’s Culver Plaza, an Irvine Company-owned mall at the corner of Irvine Center and Culver Center Drive a few miles to the south.
“We looked, but we couldn’t get in,” Chen said of Culver Plaza.
The bank expects the Chinese community to continue migrating northwest along Edinger Avenue as more housing comes.
In June, Tustin approved a plan by Miami-based Lennar Corp. and Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes Inc. to build 1,542 homes and condos at the former Marine base. The bank is just across from the base, which eventually could be home to as many as 3,400 homes by early 2007.
Culver Plaza has become a banking hot spot for OC’s Chinese-Americans in recent years. The mall includes a branch from Cathay General Bancorp, Chinatrust Bank (USA), Far East National Bank, Omni Bank and United Commercial Bank, a unit of UCBH Holdings Inc.
Why Culver Plaza?
About 11% of Irvine’s 143,072 residents were of Chinese origin in 2000, according to the Census. (Roughly 30% were of Asian descent.)
The banks also are drawn to the plaza because a 99 Ranch Market is just a stone’s throw away. The Buena Park-based grocer is the biggest Asian supermarket retailer in California.
“All Chinese-American banks tend to follow 99 Ranch,” said Julia Gouw, chief financial officer of East West Bancorp Inc. in San Marino.
On the inside, 99 Ranch stores have the ambience of a scaled-down Wal-Mart or Costco. Customers are blitzed with everything from Chinese DVDs to a travel agency and ginseng booths.
In the rear of the chain’s Culver Plaza store, there are massive fish tanks with live stripe bass, catfish, black bass, red tilapia and Dungeness crab. Nearby is the trendy Sam Woo restaurant and Koki’s Teppan & Sushi.
Banks that cater to Chinese-Americans in San Gabriel Valley cities such as Monterey Park, Alhambra, Rosemead or San Marino aren’t as concentrated as they are here.
That’s because those cities are more mature, said Milton Lai, vice president and branch manager of the United Commercial branch at Culver Plaza.
“This is why the banks congregate together here,” said Lai, who doesn’t mind the friendly rivalry with his neighbors at Culver Plaza.
United Commercial opened its branch at the mall in 1996.
“There are five of us here, and we all get along together,” said Lin Chin, branch manager of Omni.
Irvine is one of the booming areas for Chinese from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to settle in outside of the San Gabriel Valley, Lai said.
“Irvine is still building lots of housing, so I see the population trends continuing to increase,” she said. “I’m seeing evidence in our mortgage lending.”
Culver Plaza hasn’t always been a shopping center for Chinese-Americans.
The 275,000-square-foot Culver Plaza opened in the early 1980s as a “garden center” with some business turnover as it aged.
Last fall, the mall got a multimillion dollar facelift that included cushioned outdoor furniture and patio heaters.
Four years ago, Tawa Supermarket Cos. and East West Bancorp Inc. cut a deal to make banking services available in Tawa’s 99 Ranch chain.
But there’s no East West bank branch in the Culver Plaza store. East West’s Gouw said that’s because the Irvine Co. hasn’t given the OK to access 99 Ranch.
This isn’t stopping East West, with $6.4 billion in assets, from setting up two miles away at a 99 Ranch store in the Orange Tree Square strip center.
This center languished for years when a small Albertson’s was the anchor. But things improved after 99 Ranch took over, said retail analyst Greg Stoffel, principal of Stoffel & Associates in Irvine.
New Shanghai restaurant, Hsin Hsin Shau May Deli, and other Asian retailers since have moved in.
Across the street at the Arbor Village Center, also along Walnut and Jeffrey, there’s a United National Bank branch. It’s the only one in OC, and the chain’s third-largest behind the San Marino-based bank’s main branches in San Marino and Monterey Park.
Now the bank is changing hands.
Last month, East West announced plans to buy United National for $165 million.
East West, which has had a small share of the OC bank market, will see its local deposit base nearly triple to $220 million when the deal closes as expected this fall, Gouw said.
The two branches next to each other will remain open, with United National changing its sign later, she said.
