By Tony Bennett
Sometimes, the changes that are the least welcome end up being the most needed. If things have been a certain way for a long time, the idea of starting anew can be unsettling, but life throwing a wrench into the works can have a way of inspiring a refreshing reboot that one didn’t know they could use.
In the case of Park State Bank, their longtime Miller Hill Mall location is now a fast-food chicken restaurant. These things happen. It had come as an unwelcome surprise to the bank, however, when Simon Property Group, the owners of the mall, informed Park State Bank that they were not going to be renewing their lease. One may imagine that Simon thought that a Chick-fil-A going into that spot would be a big draw and would help mall business, and so they had to do what was best for them, but it put Park State Bank in a tough spot and the potential outcomes were hazy and unpredictable.
Today, however, that particular Park State Bank has sprouted up in a new, high-traffic location not far from their old stomping grounds, and they’re in a building that has been updated for them specifically, allowing the business to grow its ranks and step into the future with a new perspective. In the end, getting the boot from the mall parking lot was a good thing.
Just ask Bud Baker, the bank’s President and a 35-year veteran of the industry. He’s sure the new Haines Road location is shaping up to be a great thing, and that this move has turned out to be a needed shot in the arm.
“I was in that building for 18 years,” Baker said. “There was a financial institution in the parking lot of Miller Hill Mall for 50 years. Pioneer National Bank acquired a block of assets from the defunct Saint Louis County Federal Savings and Loan that included that location in 1987. After 50 years, Simon came to us and said ‘We’re not going to renew your lease. We’ve got a big franchise restaurant coming to town, and they’re going to take your space.’”
Just like that, the bank had to hunt for property. Baker said that job took about three years. “We identified one spot, and then, at the last minute, the lease blew up on that,” he lamented. “We were working on another spot last fall, and we ran out of weather. And then, this dropped into our lap. We actually had a customer that bought this building and asked us if we wanted to lease. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better location than this, and we just stumbled onto it. It’s very visible, lots of traffic, lots of retail in our backyard.”
The need to move suddenly presented the Park State crew at the mall location and others with an opportunity to rethink how the bank did things. Perhaps most notably, their ranks eventually swelled in size. “Our former location at the mall had five people,” Baker said. “I’ve got 20, here. I basically took my staff on Central Avenue and moved all but a couple of them. I’ve got my business-banking team, a couple of credit analysts, a couple portfolio managers – basically, all the business banking in the Duluth market is run out of here.”
The new location opened at the end of September, so it’s still early days, and Baker’s still seeing longtime customers that were scattered to the Mount Royal and Lincoln Park bank locations finding the new Hermantown digs, but he says “a bunch” of customers have done so thus far, and new customers are finding them, as well.
“Our traffic count is significant,” he noted. “We’re starting to see more and more people come in and want to open new accounts, which is great.”
When it came to customizing the building for their unique needs, Park State Bank called upon Donald Holm Construction, who they’ve got a longstanding relationship with.
“Donald Holm Construction has done all of our work for 30 years,” Baker said. “I didn’t bid the general contractor out. They’re a good customer. They’ve taken care of us forever. So they did their thing. We really try to throw back to our customer base.”
“We had a little help from an architect,” Baker said, “but, basically, we wanted to do this as inexpensively as we [could]. We tried to use as much of the existing space as we could. The floor plan was – there were offices around the perimeter that we pretty much left untouched, and then we [added] a bunch of offices and the workstations and the interior and the teller line. The model in the past – where you had this huge lobby – we don’t have that. We kept bathrooms. We didn’t do any plumbing. We moved two walls and added a door. We didn’t gut it by any means.”
Max Holm of Donald Holm Construction Co. Inc. said his firm was pleased to be asked to be a part of the project. “We were certainly happy that they were able to choose us to work with. We’ve banked with Park State Bank and Bud Baker for over 30 years, now,” he noted. “They enlisted the services of Arola Architecture to supply permit-ready plans that we could work off of and please the City of Hermantown. Being that the existing space was previously a bank was a huge bonus and made our job quite easy.”
Holm said his firm was asked to “build some new offices and a new teller line, leaving the existing bathrooms, mechanical rooms, breakroom, conference room and a handful of offices in place. Our only challenge was the process of designing and procuring the proper materials and install for the teller line. Set the schedule back a little bit, but nothing we ultimately weren’t able to overcome. In the end, they have a nice new office space and teller area.”
“We worked with some great local trade partners,” Holm said, explaining that wall coverings, tape, sand and paint was done by Swanson & Youngdale, flooring and wall tile was done by Johnson Carpet One, electrical and data was covered by Nylund Electric, HVAC modifications were the responsibility of A.W. Kuettel & Sons, the teller line, cabinets and tops were handled by St. Germain’s, the doors-and-frames supplier was Northern Door & Hardware and the aluminum storefront and glass was done by Superior Glass.
Park State Bank Vice President Bryan Lent said the move to Haines Road is a good one for this particular moment in the bank’s history. “Financial institutions needed to be between work and home, at one time,” he said, “and some of that is changing. We just kind of need to be where people are traveling, and this corridor has so much activity going on.”
Moving employees from the other Park State locations to staff up in Hermantown could’ve been a challenge, but Lent said that he felt that the rejiggering went smoothly. “All in all, it was really favorable,” he enthused. “They knew the change was coming for a while, and the goal was to keep the staff together at the new location. That was really important – people didn’t want to get broken up. They wanted to stay with people that they were working with on a day-to-day basis.” This was largely achieved, with some new routines being learned along the way. “Everybody’s travel to and from work changed, their habits during lunch hour – those change a bit. But everybody got used to it pretty quickly.”
Now that all the dust has settled, it turns out getting kicked out after such a long time to make room for a chicken restaurant turned out to be a great thing for Park State Bank.
“We’re in an area where growth is abundant,” said Lent. “Being able to be in this location with our staff hopefully solidifies us in this community as being here and ready to serve. This location gives Park State Bank a little breath of fresh air in the banking landscape of the Northland.”
Tony Bennett is a Duluth-based freelance writer.
