26 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 9, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM Astoria Bank, Sterling Bancorp merge for $2.2B BY SUZANNE MONTEVERDI [email protected]/@smont76 Sterling Bancorp and Astoria Financial Corporation announced on March 7 that they will merge in a stock-for-stock transaction Photo via Property Shark City plans to build park below bridge BY ANGELA MATUA [email protected] @AngelaMatua Th e new and improved Kosciuszko Bridge may come with a park for the community. According to Lisa Ann Deller, chair of the Land Use Committee of Community Board 2, the Parks Department and Department of Transportation are looking to transform two lots underneath the bridge on the Queens side in Maspeth. Th e lots are 24,000 square feet and 8,000 square feet and the agencies are looking for community input. Th e Queens and Brooklyn approaches to the bridge will be imploded in July to expedite the construction process, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last week. So far, ideas include a skate park, a recreation court for industrial workers in the area so they can go out and exercise during lunch time or storage space for the Parks Department. Residents of the neighboring Blissville neighborhood of Long Island City have long been asking for green space, according to community board members. Th e closest green space in the area is First Calvary cemetery, board member Mary Torres joked. Dorothy Morehead, the chair for the board’s Environmental Committee, added that people bike and run along the water so she would like to see more infrastructure to promote those uses. Th e Courier reached out to the Parks Department for more information and is awaiting feedback. To share suggestions about the park with Community Board 2, email them at [email protected]. valued at approximately $2.2 billion. Th e resulting institution will be the sixth-largest regional bank in the New York City area in terms of deposits, and have $29 billion in total assets. Th e combined company will operate under the Sterling Bancorp name and its principal banking subsidiary will operate under the name Sterling National Bank. Th e resulting institution will have span the New York City, Hudson Valley, Long Island and northern New Jersey area. In December, New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) and Astoria Bank announced that a merger agreement between the two fi nancial institutions fell through, eff ective Jan. 1. Th e decision came 14 months aft er NYCB announced that it had purchased Astoria Financial Corporation, holding company for Astoria Bank, in a $2 billion deal. “By joining forces, Astoria and Sterling will create one of the leading banking enterprises in the NYC metropolitan area and will be well positioned to deliver performance and value for our customers, shareholders, employees and communities,” said Jack L. Kopnisky, President and CEO of Sterling. “We are excited about the opportunity to bring together two companies with extremely complementary strengths, providing a platform to extend Sterling’s business banking solutions across a substantially larger market area, while introducing Astoria’s retail products to a wider fi nancial center network.” “We are very pleased to be merging with Sterling Bancorp,” said Monte N. Redman, President and Chief Executive Offi cer of Astoria Bank. “Astoria Bank’s strong presence in attractive markets should provide Sterling with an ideal platform from which to continue executing on their diff erentiated, teambased commercial relationship model.” The Astoria Bank location on 30th Avenue in Astoria.
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