Plans are in the works to lease Community Bank’s former location on the first floor of 120 Washington St., which it shut down Sept. 10 after acquiring the branch from HSBC.

The Washington Street site — only a few hundred feet from Community’s other location at 216 Washington St. — was closed by Community because of its proximity. Community is developing a plan with the building’s landlord, 200 Washington Street Associates, which bought the building in September 2007, to lease its 7,000-square-foot first-floor space, but not to another financial institution.

Community still needs to make good on a lease for the office space through 2017 that was signed when HSBC moved in, but plans to sublet meanwhile.

“We’ve been talking, but there are some things we’d like taken care of and they’d like taken care of” before leasing the space, said the building owners’ managing partner, Donald G.M. Coon III. “They’re willing to entertain someone to sublet it, but they’re still going to pay on the lease.”

Mr. Coon said he plans to work with Community to find a business that will satisfy both parties. But it won’t be another bank. “They’re not going to let someone that’s a direct competitor of theirs in there,” he said. “We’re looking for the right kind of tenant for the first floor, and it could take three months or a year.”

Community, which purchased 16 HSBC branches in upstate New York this summer, also closed a former HSBC branch Sept. 10 that it acquired at 75550 S. State St. in Lowville.

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