Bank of America

Bank of America is a leading U.S. retail and commercial bank that provides everyday banking, lending, and advisory services to consumers, small businesses, and large companies. Its network of financial centers, ATMs, regional offices, and operations campuses makes it a significant user of retail and office space in markets across the country, and a major provider of capital to owners, investors, and developers.

The company traces its origins to 1904, when Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco to serve working-class and immigrant communities that traditional banks tended to ignore. Over the next century, the institution grew through organic expansion and a long series of mergers. A defining step in creating the current Bank of America came in 1998, when NationsBank and BankAmerica combined and established the headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Another major milestone followed in 2008 with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, which transformed the bank into a larger player in wealth management and investment banking and led to the Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank brands that remain important parts of the platform today.

As of April 2024, Bank of America operates about 3,800 retail financial centers and roughly 15,000 ATMs, serving around 69 million consumer and small business clients. The retail footprint covers all 50 states, with particularly dense clustering in large metropolitan areas across New York, California, Texas, Florida, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Southeast. Beyond the United States, the firm serves corporate, institutional, and high net worth clients from offices in more than 35 countries in Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Canada.

Over the past five years, the company has been reshaping its physical presence rather than simply growing branch counts. Bank of America has closed some older or overlapping locations while opening new financial centers and upgrading existing sites in faster-growing markets and high-traffic urban districts. Recent investment has tilted toward the Sun Belt, major coastal cities, and high-growth suburbs in Texas and Florida, as well as dense urban nodes in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and select affluent suburban and infill areas with strong deposit potential. Many of the newer and remodeled centers place more emphasis on digital engagement, advisory rooms, and integrated Merrill and small business banking, reducing the focus on traditional teller-heavy layouts.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Bank of America functions as a large, creditworthy anchor for street retail, mixed-use projects, and office towers. The bank leases and owns significant amounts of space for branches, advisory-focused financial centers, regional headquarters, and back-office campuses in hubs such as Charlotte, New York, Dallas, Phoenix, and Jacksonville. Its ongoing effort to optimize and modernize the network produces a steady flow of relocations, consolidations, and selective new openings, particularly on visible corners and in projects that reinforce its presence in growth corridors. In many cases, the institution can also be both a tenant and a financing partner through its commercial real estate, small business, and equipment finance capabilities, which adds another dimension to long-term relationships with property owners and developers.