Above: Architect's exterior rendering of the Pioneer Bank's new headquarters, scheduled to open this fall.
While at least one other bank is closing facilities in north Roswell, Pioneer Bank is constructing a new headquarters building with five drive-up banking lanes, the bank’s president noted.
Construction is proceeding on the 40,000-square-foot, two-story building at 3000 N. Main St.
“We will have quite a drive-up facility,” Pioneer Bank President Jon Hitchcock said.
The bank headquarters building also will have a drive-up ATM machine that can be accessed from a vehicle, Hitchcock said.
“We’re building a very prominent drive-up ATM so as you enter this drive to the west off Main (Street) there’s a really, really nice ATM that you can drive up to, and then you can turn around and exit back on Main or you can exit on Mescalero (Road),” Hitccock said “We think this will e a really, really huge plus for this area.”
Unlike other ATMs, this one won’t require a customer to get out of a vehicle to access it.
“You can drive right up to the ATM, then turn and go back to Main or Mescalero,” he added. “I wish we had this in all of our branches because it’s going to be really, really great.”
The full-service, state-of-the-art banking facility will house all of Pioneer’s departments under one roof, according to Bridget Lara, Pioneer marketing director.
“We look to run a little more efficiently,” she said, adding the bank’s corporate offices are spread out on the third and fourth floors of Penn Plaza, 400 N. Pennsylvania Ave.
The new building, to be occupied by about 100 bank employees, will provide about 40 percent more space than the corporate headquarters now occupies.
Construction of the building, for which ground was broken June 17, is on schedule, Hitchcock said.
He said the bank is expecting to have the building ready for occupancy in October.
Pioneer Bank President Jon Hitchcock pauses during a tour of the new Pioneer Bank headquarters, under construction ast 3000 N.Main St.
DEI Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, designed the building. DEI is a national design/build company that specializes in banks. DEI designed and built the Pioneer Bank branch in Las Cruces.
DEI also is the building contractor in partnership with Studio D of Las Cruces, which prepared all the construction documents for the building.
DEI has designed a building that will create a retail merchandising area within the spacious lobby, Hitchcock said.
The building also will feature a spacious lobby with historical vignettes, Hitchcock said.
“Of course, we try and draw from the surrounding area, terrain features and topography and things that are a part of the community,” he added.
“It’s these vignettes that create the look and feel as you enter the lobby, that’s going to make it so unique,” Hitchcock said, "and an area for children that will be marked by a replica of a rocket from the era of Robert H. Goddard, who tested rockets in the Roswell area in the 1930s. The children’s area will feature an X-Box.
“It’s built around rockets actually from the Goddard era and what he did so they can relate to that,” Hitchcock said. “It will create a unique space for them.”
On a tour of the building, Hitchcock pointed out the area that will contain offices now in Penn Plaza, including all the bank’s loan administration, where mortgages from four or five states are administered.
“It’s just going to create such efficiencies for us to be together under one roof once again,” he added. “That’s what we’re so excited about.”
View from the second floor of the new Pioner Bank headquarters, under construction.
Even the heating and cooling in the building, provided by Rhoads Plumbing and Heating Company, will be top-notch, according to Hitchcock.
“Our architect commented that Rhoads has done such a great job, that they didn’t see mechanical folks seal up these vents except in hospitals usually,” he added. “That’s the spirit we’re making this and putting it together.”
The bank will store supplies and records in the basement, where the technology staff also will have their offices, Hitchcock said.
“All our general supplies, out IT people, servers, all our technology staff will be down here so that the equipment is in a more controlled environment and protected,” he said.
All the bank’s records, now stored in various places in Roswell, also will be moved to the basement, Hitchcock said.
“As an entity that has been around since 1901, we have more storage facilities containing records that we have to keep for years and years and years, and some of them permanently, that we’ll build track systems or file storage systems to concentrate a lot of that back into one facility,” he added.
“We’re always assisting customers who need research done back years nd yers and right now it’s just very difficult to deal with that when our staff has to go all over town bringing boxes in to go through to find the right records that they need for a customer,” he said. “That’s another example of how having all that under one roof is gingto make our lives a lot easier for our staff.”
The heating and coolng system will include several units and a redundancy that will make sure the building is never without heating or cooling.
“We’ve experienced too many times when a single boiler plant failed an it’s miserable in the lobby,” he added. “We didn’t want to risk that. This system has multiple units and compressors so we wouldn’t be at risk if a single component failed.”
The new building will give Pioneer Bank, which has been serving the Roswell area since 1901, five locations in Roswell. Others are at Main and Berrendo Road, Main and St. Mary’s Place, Alameda Street and Sunset Avenue, and Fourth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Pioneer also has offices in Ruidoso, Alamogordo, Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Hobbs and El Paso and a mortgage office in Midland, Texas.