Steady growth led to decision to build a new operations center

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Continued growth required Bangor Savings Bank to build a new operations center to accommodate its expanded business and the required support employees. Edward M. Youngblood, the senior vice president-retail services division, said that the bank also needed more storage space because of its steady growth.

Since installing its own in-house computer in 1992, Bangor Savings has spread beyond its original walls at 3-15 State St., Bangor, into three other buildings located nearby. In early 1990, the bank initiated a detailed analysis of its future needs for employees and space. The analysis covered 20 banking functions that could conceivably relocate to an operations center.

“We started talking seriously about consolidation,” Youngblood said. “We had a need to control our own destiny and not be dependent on someone else. The analysis involved looking at our needs one year into the future — and our needs five years into the future.”

The analysis indicated that Bangor Savings would continue to grow. “With that information available to us, we decided what we wanted to do. Could we get by with our present space, or must we find more room?” Youngblood said.

Bank officials opted to consolidate certain functions at one site. None of the four buildings currently used by the bank would suffice; the bank must look elsewhere, hopefully as close to downtown Bangor as possible.

According to Youngblood, there were several factors considered as managers reviewed each potential site. These factors included:

The site location and its physical dimensions;

The amount of traffic;

Site accessibility to a major road (needed by the bank’s courier service) and the bank’s main office at 3-15 State St.;

The availability of utilities;

Proper zoning;

How long the zoning-approval process would take;

Future expansion.

“Once we determined that we needed an area that had 30,000-50,000 square feet (available for a building), five acres of land, and room for expansion, we looked at several sites in the area,” Youngblood said.

In spring 1991, the bank initiated negotiations with the city of Bangor for land in the Maine Business Enterprise Park at Bangor International Airport. Bangor created the enterprise park to develop airport property bounded by Interstate 95, Maine Avenue, and Hammond Street. The proposed operations center would be the park’s first tenant.

The Bangor development staff worked very closely with bank officials. “We are highly pleased with the cooperation we were extended by the city. They have helped make this project possible,” Youngblood said. “They couldn’t have been better.”

In mid-October 1991, Bangor Savings took an option on a 5 1/2-acre lot at the intersection of Hammond Street and Maine Avenue. The city would own the land, which the bank would lease, but Bangor Savings would own any building it placed on the site.

There was growing internal pressure to build an operations center. The list of available bank services was increasing. For example, by becoming a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston about 1990, Bangor Savings could process its own checks and issue treasury securities, services denied it in the past.

The bank had started contracting its computer services with the NCR Corp. in Framingham, Mass., in 1969. In 1991, however, “we brought all that back to Bangor,” said Malcolm E. Jones, the president of Bangor Savings Bank.

The bank installed a new mainframe computer at its main office in February 1992. “That’s when we started to burst at the seams here,” Jones said. “We needed more room, and there was none available where we were. We needed to expand.

“We figured that instead of sending our money to Massachusetts, we would do better keeping it in Maine,” Jones said. “By bringing the computer back to Bangor, we would hire local people for local jobs.”

Growth had also been spurred by the bank’s decision to issue its own VISA and Mastercard charge cards. Although the bank does not process credit-card transactions, it does collect the fee paid by stores where the cards are used.

Bangor Savings Bank’s Board of Trustees met on Sept. 28, 1992, and approved building an operations center. Plans called for a 46,000-square-foot building tucked into the triangle formed by Maine Avenue and Hammond Street. The center would abut the bank’s branch office at 871 Hammond St.

The next month, Bangor Savings signed a 40-year lease for the site. The center would cost about $3 million to build and would generate $60,000 in annual property taxes. Until 1997, the bank will pay $1,933.75 in monthly rent for the land; the rent will increase starting in Janury 1998.

Bangor Savings hired Bangor architect James Francis Smith to design the new operations center. Bid requests were issued to local general contractors only; Brewer-based Nickerson & O’Day Inc. was picked to build the center.

“We consciously decided that we wanted a general contractor from within our service area,” Youngblood said. “We are a locally owned and managed bank, so we wanted to extend this philosophy to our new construction.

“We have worked extensively with James Francis Smith before; he has been doing most of our ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) work (in remodeling the existing bank buildings),” Youngblood said. Jack Kelley and Nickerson & O’Day Inc. were also known quantities at Bangor Savings; the contractor had built the first expansion at 3-15 State St. in the 1970s.

Construction started on the building last autumn. Two softball fields had stood on the site for many years; the city replaced these by building two new fields on Outer Union Street.

By late summer 1993, bank officials could narrow the “move-in” date to Columbus Day weekend. Plans went ahead to relocate various bank functions in two stages, with the last one concluded in early November.

Even as construction proceeded on the operations center, “we fielded many questions from our customers and the public as to what exactly was moving out to the airport,” Youngblood said.

“People were afraid we were leaving the downtown. It didn’t help that our time-and-temperature clock (outside the main office) failed about the time the move occurred,” he commented. “We had to take it apart” to install some new electronic components (the clock is running again); the temporary disappearance “made people nervous about our intentions,” Youngblood said.

“The questions never stopped; they have slowed down as we’ve advertised our intent for staying in downtown Bangor. This (3-15 State St.) remains our main office,” he stressed. “We tell people that only our support functions are leaving the downtown.

“The average person has very little perception about the number of people needed behind the scenes at a bank,” Youngblood commented. “To most people, a bank is a lobby, the tellers, perhaps a loan officer.

“Those types of functions are staying at 3 State St.,” he said. “Bangor Savings Bank is committed to downtown Bangor. I repeat that this will still be our main office. Everything that’s downtown is customer-oriented,” including all types of lending and the trust department, as well as most of the bank’s administration.

Youngblood, who served as “overseer of the contract” to build the new operations center, has been extremely pleased with the project. “I can’t think of anything we would do differently than the way we did it,” he said.

“It’s been an unbelievably easy project. I think it’s a testimony to planning ahead for the future,” Youngblood stated.