Ontario Shores credit union expanding in Niagara County

Ontario Shores Federal Credit Union plans to expand its Newfane branch office.

The credit union will undertake construction of an addition that extends all the way to the north end of the building, doubling its footprint, and over the next couple of years the branch will be looking to hire an additional 15 employees, according to CEO Jeff Bell.

Continued growth in membership is the main reason for the physical expansion, Bell said.

“We’ve just been growing and the demand is here. We don’t want to just have the growth without the service there and have the service suffer,” he said.

While credit union leadership had weighed a few different options on how and where to expand operations, they decided to keep it centered around the credit union’s roots in Newfane.

“We had talks about what the next move should be, (whether we) should open a new branch someplace else and make that our headquarters, but we decided to keep it right here where it all started,” Bell said.

Construction at the Newfane branch was slated to start this month and be completed in November.

Bell said the growth of Ontario Shores FCU is contrary to the trend he is observing at smaller credit unions in other areas.

“It’s kind of a time where (smaller) credit unions are ... dropping like flies to bigger credit unions. Mergers and acquisitions are all the rage right now and we’re still growing strong out of little old Newfane, New York,” he said.

Ontario Shores is open to anybody who lives, works, worships or attends school in Western New York. Its second branch office is in Medina, and Bell said a third branch is “on the docket for next summer.”

“We’re looking at one in Pendleton. I think it’ll be the first the first financial institution in that area, so we’re pretty proud of that,” he said.