JPMorganChase signs on at new Sauer Center office building

JPMorganChase is the newest tenant in the newly built office building at Sauer Center. (BizSense file photo)

As it continues to spread its retail branches around the region, a giant of the banking industry is also relocating its commercial hub in the city.

JPMorganChase is preparing to move into the newly built office building in Sauer Center, the Whole Foods- and CarMax-anchored commercial development from Sauer Properties.

JPMorgan will be relocating its commercial and corporate banking teams from James Center downtown to a 3,700-square-foot space on the third floor of 2230 W. Broad St.

It’s a recently completed, four-story building totaling 54,000 square feet of office space, about half of which is occupied by various Bon Secours medical practices.

The JPMorgan Richmond team, including market leader Joe Peddicord (right)

Joe Peddicord, head of JPMorgan’s middle market operations in the Mid-Atlantic, said his group has been in One James Center for about 10 years and was looking for a more space and a more modern layout as its lease downtown was set to expire next month.

He said the ability to outfit the Sauer Center space from scratch was a draw for the bank.

“Just given our firm’s standards for space it was really attractive to have a blank slate to work with,” Peddicord said.

The bank signed its lease in the spring and is underway on renovations. Peddicord said they hope to move in early next year and will work in temporary space in the nearby Gather coworking space.

In the meantime, the JPMorgan name has already been emblazoned atop the building, giving the company some added visibility even before it officially moves in.

“It’s yet another sign of our growth and visibility across the market,” Peddicord said, also referring to the company’s Chase Bank retail branches that have steadily been added across the Richmond region in recent years. It’s latest is under construction at Regency in western Henrico.

Peddicord said the Sauer Center office will have room to sit about 20 employees a day and can better accommodate visitors compared to its current office downtown.

“It’s going to be a much more modern office as the working world has changed since Covid,” he said.

Locally, the JPMorgan commercial banking employee base includes about 10 people in commercial banking, a few in private banking and a global corporate banking team.

Those practices were the bank’s first to arrive in the Richmond market in 2010, before it began to build retail locations years later.

The team works with business clients with $20 million to $2 billion in revenue and up. It provides things like loans and credit facilities, retirement plans, treasury services among other offerings.

Peddicord, whose territory includes Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., said the Richmond market has been fruitful for the company since its arrival 15 years ago.

“Richmond has its own flavor and nuances but it’s been a really good market for us,” he said. “It has really been a growing and stable market for us for a long time. It doesn’t move as fast as D.C. but there’s lot of good companies here.”

The addition of JPMorgan to the Sauer Center tenant roster marks another win for the development as the new office building continues to fill out.

Marshall French, Sauer’s director of development and construction, said JPMorgan and another unnamed tenant will fill out the building’s third floor, while the company continues to market the fourth floor.

“This whole phase one of the development and that new office building was designed to attract quality professional service firms,” French said. “So the addition of JPMorgan just validates the success of the Sauer Center and shows it’s really a premier location.”

Additional phases for Sauer Center are planned in the long term as the company continues to work on a masterplan for the development. French declined to comment on the status of that process.

Across the parking lot from the new building, education curriculum company Great Minds recently vacated its nearly 19,000-square-foot headquarters at 840 Hermitage Road. Great Minds is still on the hook for the lease, however, and is actively marketing it for sublease. Sauer Properties owns the building.

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