Fidelity Keeps On The Sunny Side
A building friendly to the environment and human beings
On a brilliant, warm April day, most people would love to get out of the office and into the sun.
At Fidelity Bank's new corporate center in Leominster, employees probably aren't immune from an impulse to head home early, but they can at least enjoy some sun on their skin during the day. The building, which has been open for a little over a year, features walls that are almost nothing but window, not only in the corporate office suites but in rooms filled with cubicles as well.
Ecology And Economy
The windows, designed to keep out the cold while letting in light and heat, are just one aspect of the win-win-win attitude toward comfort, environmental responsibility and economic sense that the bank brought to the design of the 47,000-square-foot building.
Fidelity President and CEO Edward F. Manzi Jr. said environmental issues weren't the first thing on his mind when the bank started planning the building. Fidelity needed more space - enough to accommodate a generation or two of growth - and wanted a location central to its market and easily accessible from the highways. Manzi said he also wanted to make a comfortable space for clients and employees, and, of course, to do the project in the most financially responsible way possible.
Light And Heat
Alvin Collins, a bank director, construction industry veteran and the founder of Habitat Advisory Group in Groton, got the bank in touch with the New Buildings Institute, an Oregon-based nonprofit sponsored by utility companies including National Grid and NStar. By becoming a NBI "Advanced Building," he learned, the building could reduce its energy costs by 30 percent. Getting the certification required an investment in better window glass and insulation and heating/ventilation improvements, among other things, for a total extra cost of $100,000 to $110,000.
But the energy savings would pay back that money in less than four years.
"Once we presented that to the rest of the board it was really a no-brainer," Collins said.
Advanced Building status, which is less rigorous than LEED certification, turned out to have unexpected benefits for the people who work and do business at the bank building, Manzi said.
High-efficiency pendent lighting floods rooms with a more natural-looking light than traditional systems, and glass panels placed in cubicle walls to extend the reach of sunlight from the windows makes office space feel more open. And anyone who has ever fought with the department down the hall over how high to set the thermostat can appreciate the value of having more than 40 "climate zones," compared to just two in some comparable buildings. That means that if one section receives plenty of sunlight in the morning, the heat can be turned down there without sending people on the other side of the building running for their coats.
Manzi said the company's turnover is at a record low since the new building opened, something he attributes partly to the improvements in comfort.
Besides being nice for employees, the pleasant environment supports Fidelity's vision of the building as a place that melds old-fashioned community banking with modern high-tech tools. While some other banks have seen the advent of online banking as a reason to stop building new branches, Fidelity seeks to balance online banking with more in-depth person-to-person services. Customers coming to the bank are less likely to be standing in line to make a deposit than to be meeting with an expert about a mortgage or a retirement saving strategy. The bank also offers seminars on topics like college savings, the management of company benefit plans and identity theft, and it allows local nonprofits to hold their meetings in a large community room.
Even the exterior of the building is designed to reflect the intersection of the traditional and the modern.
"It's not two worlds clashing," he said. "It's two worlds really integrated seamlessly with each other."
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments