195 Church St. in New Haven. Photo courtesy of Google Maps

KeyBank, an Ohio-based regional bank with $195 billion in assets and a presence in Massachusetts and Connecticut, is embracing remote work for some non-branch staff and plans to move out of its New Haven office space by the end of the year.

KeyBank’s Senior Communications Manager Karen Crane confirmed that the bank decided to vacate its leased space on the third floor of the 195 Church St. office tower in New Haven by Dec. 31.

“This is a business decision based on the increased mobility of a portion of our workforce and an underutilization of the space at this location. It has enabled us to be more strategic about our corporate real estate holdings since less in-person space is required with our flexible work policy,” Crane said in an email.

Crane said about a dozen people have been assigned workspace in New Haven, not including branch staff. The rest of the mobile workers will be in a shared space.

“Employees have the choice of several offices, including offices in Hartford, Shelton, Hamden, Norwalk, and Manchester. Plus, all of our branches have space that can accommodate mobile workers,” she said.

The bank spokesperson clarified that there will be no layoffs related to the move, and it will not affect the operations and strategy of the bank in Connecticut.

The KeyBank branch on the lobby level of the building at 195 Church St. will remain open and operational.

The 10.89 million-square-foot New Haven-area office market saw 92,000 square feet of negative absorption focused in the class A sector in the last quarter, according to commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, and its vacancy rate ended the third quarter at 17.8 percent despite over 128,000 square feet worth of new leases so far this year.