The directors of Citizens Bank at Batesville were already contemplating a new headquarters building when they hired Phil Baldwin as CEO in 2013. The 37,000-SF $13.8 million building finally opened last month, and it is decidedly different.
Designed by Blake Dunn and his colleagues at CADM Architecture in El Dorado and built by Clark Contractors of Little Rock, “it’s very bright, it’s very functional, it’s very open,” Baldwin said last week. It also ties together a new generation of branches for a bank that is expanding at a clip.
After joining Citizens, Baldwin finished assembling the site at 655 St. Louis St., which takes better advantage of 21st century traffic patterns than the main office that’s been at 200 S. Third since 1965. While about 45 employees now work in the new building, the old building still has about 80 employees working on “back office” tasks, so it remains the largest employee group working in downtown Batesville, he said.
CADM has done design work for other banks, including First Financial of El Dorado and Simmons of Pine Bluff. But Dunn said the Citizens leadership seemed to want an “anti-bank.”
Baldwin is an admirer of Umpqua Bank of Roseburg, Oregon, so he dispatched Dunn to the Pacific Northwest to check it out.
“What they were describing to me,” Dunn said, “was a bank that was completely different from traditional banking. They wanted to improve the customer-banker relationship and break down the barriers and create openness and transparency.”
To that end, the four-story building incorporates a coffeeshop-like area on the first floor. Two local companies, Morningside Coffee House and The Pinto Coffee & Comidas, deliver self-serve pots of fresh coffee in the mornings and after lunch, Baldwin said, and the coffeeshop is equipped with high-speed wireless internet for the convenience of customers who stop by for a free cup.
Outdoor space on the fourth floor is available for public and charitable events. Backlighting and translucent glazing are installed throughout the building.
“The architecture is very contemporary,” Dunn said. “They wanted their building to reflect their core values, so the building is very transparent day or night.”
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During the 16 months that the headquarters was under construction, CADM was also working with Citizens on standard designs for different sizes of branches that reflect the same aesthetics. The first of the new models, almost 7,000 SF, opened in Arkadelphia earlier this year. A smaller branch, about 3,000 SF, opened on Thursday in Hot Springs.
Next up: an even bigger branch prototype, perhaps twice as big as the Arkadelphia branch. Baldwin said the first of the larger branches will be in Little Rock, and site consultants are now evaluating potential locations.
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