JPMorgan expands in Garden City with private bank catering to Long Island millionaires

JPMorgan Chase is opening a new private banking office in Garden City and expanding its local workforce as it aims to manage the wealth of more of Long Island’s millionaires.

J.P. Morgan Private Bank moved into a renovated 16,000-square-foot office on Franklin Avenue in August and will open its client center there later this month, the company said.

The office is part of JPMorgan's strategy to win the business of affluent families over other top wealth management firms, such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America’s Merrill. It advanced that strategy through its 2023 acquisition of First Republic Bank, which specialized in serving wealthy clients and previously had a Garden City office in the building JPMorgan is  occupying.  

Private banking offers families with generational wealth personalized guidance in areas such as investing, tax strategies and estate planning. JPMorgan’s private bank serves an exclusive clientele, and while bankers have discretion over their client roster, the office aims to serve families with at least $5 million in investable assets, said Jennifer Marks, managing director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, who leads the Long Island office.

On Long Island, there are more than 50,000 families with net worths above $10 million, according to research from the private bank.  

“That is a huge opportunity,” said Marks, a Long Island native. “By any measure, it's in the top 15 of the wealth opportunities across the country. So it makes perfect sense that a private bank would be dedicated to a region where there's so much great wealth and opportunity.”

 The bank's arrival in Garden City is also a positive sign for Nassau County’s commercial real estate market, according to the building's landlord, with JPMorgan investing in its brick-and-mortar presence even as more wealth management clients shift discussions of their financial affairs to video calls. 

A survey of high-net-worth investors last year found only 1 in 5 respondents preferred in-person meetings as their primary form of contact with their adviser, according to the survey from professional services firm PwC. The largest share, 37%, said they prefer phone or video calls. The survey also showed wealthy investors ages 18 to 34 ranked the quality of a wealth manager’s digital services as their No. 1 priority.

A report from Boston market research firm Cerulli Associates found that demographic will grow increasingly important as baby boomers  pass down an expected $61 trillion to millennial and Gen Z heirs as part of a significant wealth transfer  that’s expected to occur through 2048.  

Marks said JPMorgan offers clients a mix of options, including digital tools to manage their money online, but the bank’s physical office offers a dedicated space where they can avoid distractions. 

"It's easy to multitask when you're on the phone or online," she said. “When we can get clients here, it creates a little bit of an environment where this is the focus for the day."

Room for growth

JPMorgan is the latest firm to open an office in Garden City, one of Long Island’s most affluent communities, along a stretch of Franklin Avenue that’s home to many of the largest financial institutions.

The corridor has evolved over the decades since its 20th century reputation as Long Island's Fifth Avenue when it was home to department stores such as Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor, said Thomas McCambridge, senior vice president of commercial leasing at The Albanese Organization, the landlord at 1001 Franklin Ave.

"Franklin Avenue became more of the Wall Street of Nassau County, with many of the major banks and financial services locating suburban offices along the Franklin Avenue corridor," he said. 

Other tenants in the building include financial planning firm Ameriprise Financial, wealth manager BNY Wealth and wealth management and investment banking firm Janney Montgomery Scott. JPMorgan's neighbors include competitors UBS and Morgan Stanley, which leases 62,000 square feet on the second floor of the former Lord & Taylor building. 

The new office will provide JPMorgan room to grow its workforce.

JPMorgan's private banking team has more than doubled in size to 45 employees since 2020, and Marks said the company plans to add 30 more employees at the location by 2027. The Long Island private banking office manages about $9.8 billion in client assets.

Wealth management is an attractive growth area for JPMorgan because it tends to be more stable through economic downturns than the investment banking and commercial banking divisions, said Suryansh Sharma, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar. The business is also an important part of JPMorgan’s strategy to serve all customers’ banking needs.

“If you are using the same bank for your deposits, your debit card, credit card, mortgage, wealth management and brokerage [account], you are much less likely to switch to another bank,” he said.

JPMorgan expanded its wealth management division through its acquisition of First Republic Bank in 2023, when regulators seized the San Francisco-based bank to avoid a collapse. Depositors had pulled $100 billion out of their accounts amid fears of a bank failure, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sold most of the bank’s assets to JPMorgan.

In turn, JPMorgan gained access to First Republic’s wealthy clients while the FDIC agreed to largely absorb potential losses from First Republic’s loans. Two years later, Sharma called the deal a “home run” for JPMorgan.  

“First Republic made a unique business model in serving the high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” Sharma said. “Getting that franchise and integrating it within the bank itself expands the bank’s capability to serve these individuals.”

On Long Island, Marks said she hopes the private bank will be a resource for wealthy families as they plan for the future,

"Not all of our clients need to worry about cash flow during their lifetime, but what might they want to do with their money when they're no longer here?" she said. "We help them think about what that plan is."