The New Builders

CHAPTER THIRTEENNo One Develops on the East Side

Jill Castilla is president and CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, a small institution located just outside of Oklahoma City. By banking standards, Edmond Community is modest. With total assets of just over $300 million, it ranks almost exactly in the middle of the US banking ecosystem.¹ But to the people who live in and around Edmond, it is the bank, established in 1901 as one of Oklahoma's first community banks. When a developer in Oklahoma City ran into a brick wall trying to obtain funding for a particularly important project, it was Edmonds Community, backed by its employee shareholders and an intensely loyal community, that received the call.

Jill had just driven under the giant railroad trestle on Broadway Extension outside Oklahoma City when that developer, Jonathan Dodson, reached her on the phone. “I have a deal,” he started. Jill knew that the young developer had previous successes in the city, including the rehab of an old theater, so she listened with interest as he described the benefits of his latest project. He pitched to her an idea for developing a former service station that would be leased by a health clinic, which would in turn spur retail development in a second building. Eventually, he described, the project would include a fitness center, restaurants, shops, and more. Then he uttered the words that had sunk his pitch with 25 other banks.

“It's on the East Side.”

The East Side of Oklahoma City hadn't seen a ...