Tysons Corner-based Cardinal Bank, one of Northern Virginia’s fastest growing financial institutions, is opening its second branch in the District.
Virginia state banking regulators have approved the institution for a new location at 1825 Wisconsin Ave. NW. in Georgetown, according to a Monday regulatory filing.
The 1,900-square-foot branch, which is next to a newly remodeled Safeway grocery store, is expected to open near the end of the first quarter of 2013. It will create four-to-five new jobs.
“We only have one branch in the District now,” said Chief Operating Officer Alice Frazier. “This is the first of our expansion plans in D.C.”
She declined to talk more about those expansion plans or the bank’s goals for its footprints in D.C. or suburban Maryland, where it also has only one branch.
Whatever those plans are, the bank just hired someone charged with executing them. In August, Cardinal tapped Robert Giraldi as market executive of the District and Montgomery County. He had been group manager of the Maryland commercial banking group for Bethesda-based EagleBank — Cardinal’s closest peer in the market and a dominant community bank in Montgomery County.
At Cardinal, Giraldi is leading sales efforts of a team of lenders, business development officers and branch managers. He is working closely with Kate Carr, Cardinal’s president for the Washington market and a dean of community banking in the District.
