PNC Bank notified the City of Lakewood and the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on April 17, 2026 that it will eliminate approximately 777 positions at FirstBank's former corporate headquarters on West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood. Separations are scheduled to begin June 30, 2026. The cuts are permanent. There are no bumping rights and none of the affected employees are represented by a labor organization. The West Colfax Building itself will stay open, with PNC continuing to use the facility for remaining staff.
The Denver Post, reporting on the WARN Act notice, confirmed the 777 figure and the June 30 start date on April 20.
PNC announced its $4.1 billion acquisition of Colorado's FirstBank Holding Company on September 8, 2025 and closed the deal on January 5, 2026. At both milestones, PNC publicly committed to retaining all FirstBank branches and "exceptional customer-facing branch teams." Industry analysts projected the deal would generate roughly $175 million in annual cost savings.
102 days after the deal closed, the WARN notice arrived at the Lakewood mayor's office. The 777 positions represent approximately 35 percent of FirstBank's pre-acquisition workforce of 2,200. The cuts target back-office, corporate, operations, and administrative functions housed at the Lakewood headquarters, not the customer-facing branch staff PNC promised to preserve. In merger language, these are the "duplicate functions" that disappear when two banks become one.
The WARN notice is addressed to Mayor Wendi Strom and Karen Hoopes, the state's Rapid Response WARN Act Coordinator. The contact listed for PNC is Justin McKim, HR Operations Service Manager, at a Pittsburgh area code. 412 is Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is where PNC is headquartered. Pittsburgh is where the decision was made.
FirstBank was Colorado's largest homegrown bank. It operated more than 100 branches in Colorado and Arizona with $26.7 billion in assets at the time of the sale. The Lakewood campus, a 227,000 square foot facility completed in 2016, was designed to house up to 1,400 employees. Eliminating 777 positions strips out more than half of that corporate footprint. The building stays open as a regional office for the combined bank, but the local headquarters function that anchored Colorado banking for nearly 60 years is gone.
Technically, PNC did not break its public commitment. The commitment covered branches and branch-facing staff. The 777 cuts are corporate, back-office, and operations roles that the commitment never mentioned. From a lawyer's perspective, the statements remain accurate. From a Lakewood worker's perspective, the message at closing was "you will be retained" and the message 102 days later was "effective June 30."
This is the structural pattern of bank M&A. Acquirers describe the deal as customer-continuity and community-presence. Analysts price in the cost savings. Regulators clear it. Months later, the synergy numbers arrive as WARN notices in the communities that built the acquired institution.