Behind the Scenes at Three Bank Renovations

Growing community banks often need to refresh their spaces. Renovating helps keep a bank looking modern and up to date and provides the opportunity to adjust the space to accommodate new needs. 

The three bank renovations profiled here were total overhauls. Each story is different, but the bottom line for these banks is the same: They needed new, functional and attractive spaces to fuel growth, and that required thoughtful planning and careful execution.

Alden State Bank goes back to the future

Alden State Bank built its original headquarters building in Alden, New York, in 1925. In 1963, the bank sold the building to the local newspaper, the Alden Advertiser, and moved its headquarters next door. Nearly a century after the original building was erected, the community bank reacquired it, renovated the space and moved back in. “[Around eight years ago], we realized we were running out of space in our headquarters and started looking at alternatives,” says Steve Woodard, president and CEO of $447 million-asset Alden State Bank. “Then, the owner of the Advertiser came, and we had a conversation about them selling us back that building because they didn’t need it anymore. So, we agreed to buy it back.”

To ensure that the community bank’s new/old home would be as close in feel as possible to the original, the bank contracted with Young & Wright Architectural and BRD Construction, both of which had worked on historic buildings. 

Woodard says they could not find many photos of the interior—he speculates one possibility as the bank not wanting would-be burglars to have a clear idea of the bank’s floor plan—but it was evident that the general layout of the building had not been significantly altered since the bank moved out over six decades ago. 

That was fortunate from a historic preservation perspective, but a modern bank building has different needs than one from the early 1960s. For example, there was no drive-thru on the original bank, so a two-lane drive-thru was added to the side . Similarly, the original had no head tellers’ room, so the architects drew one into the plans. And because the only restroom in the original was in the basement, new Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant restrooms were built on the main floor.

The two original vaults—one on the main floor and one on the mezzanine level—were also still intact. During the renovation, the upper vault was converted to a workspace, but the bank decided to modernize the main floor vault, adding safe deposit boxes and putting it back into service.

“The Advertiser told me, ‘We have the combinations to the vaults if you need them,’” says Woodard. “I said, ‘Yeah, we’re good. The fact that you guys had them is reason alone that we can’t keep them!’”

The value of the builder’s restoration expertise became clear when it came time to restore the building’s interior. Much of the original woodwork, including the railings along the mezzanine, had been removed but was stored in the basement. A veteran carpenter employed by the builder masterfully restored it all.

On the exterior, the brick masonry had been repaired here and there over the years, but not with exactly matching bricks. The builder found a best match to the originals and replaced the mismatched bricks. Fortunately, Alden State Bank’s name was still carved into the front façade from when it first opened. Even the bank’s burglar alarm—though no longer functioning—was still attached to an exterior wall.

The community bank held a grand opening of the restored building in October 2024.

“Thanks to those craftsmen and other people that worked on this project, it turned out very well,” says Woodard. “I was out in public the other day and a customer stopped me and said, ‘Oh, I love that building.’” 
 

Sanibel Captiva Community Bank rebuilds after hurricane

In September 2022, Hurricane Ian crashed into the southwestern Florida coastline, raking over Sanibel Island and nearby areas. The McGregor Boulevard location of Sanibel Captiva Community Bank in Sanibel Island, Florida, was swamped.

“Our McGregor branch, which originally was a house, had between five and six feet of water inside the building [during Hurricane Ian,]” says Amy McQuagge, vice president and director of marketing for the $1 billion-asset bank. “When something gets wet, especially a building, nothing is the same. So, executive leadership and our board decided to go ahead and raze the building and rebuild.”

Demolishing the damaged structure and rebuilding gave Sanibel Captiva an opportunity to create a prototype for future locations.

A key design decision was to make the new building fit with the “modern coastal” look of its neighborhood. Large windows create sunlit interior spaces, and the ceiling is covered with whitewashed wood. The look extends to the works of art that decorate the walls. The murals behind the teller line depict familiar local views, including large palm trees and a lighthouse, and the community room features photos of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, iconic former residents of Lee County.

Perhaps the most distinct design element of the bank is a large Florida Style front porch, complete with rocking chairs.

The interior layout of the new building suits Sanibel Captiva’s needs. One key element is the community room, which has a separate entrance and after-hours access. The space features a large conference table and full audio-visual services.

“Because we’re a community bank, we wanted to make sure that we were opening our doors to the public to offer meeting space to groups that don’t have places to meet without paying for it,” McQuagge says. “It’s an added benefit to support the community that has supported us for [22] years.”

The bank’s parking lot features two electric vehicle charging stations, another benefit for the community. Staff, customers and other community members are welcome to charge their EVs for free. 

Damaging storms are a fact of life in Florida, so the new building was designed to be resilient to severe weather. For example, the builders trucked in tons of fill dirt to raise the foundation of the new building, making it several feet taller than the previous one and less likely to be affected by future flooding. 

Another key feature is that all windows and doors are fitted with hurricane-impact glass.

“Going forward, especially with our next location on Fort Myers Beach, we’ll build something that is hurricane-resistant top to bottom,” says McQuagge. “There’s just no other way to do it in this community.”

The new building opened in August 2025, nearly three years after Hurricane Ian. McQuagge says the modern coastal design that was developed for this branch is already being applied to the bank’s upcoming branch on Fort Myers Beach.

“The McGregor [Boulevard] location is different from all of our existing buildings,” she says. “That is now being used as a template for when we build new locations.”

Williamstown Bank says goodbye to the late ’70s look

When leaders of Williamstown Bank in Williamstown, West Virginia, bought a competitor’s building in the nearby community of Lubeck in 2019, they knew it would be a heavy lift to get the building into shape.

“It had been built, I believe, in the late ’70s, and it had the same furniture that it had back when it had been built,” laughs Sharon Anderson, president and CEO of the $227 million-asset community bank. “It was a very tired-looking facility.”

Not only was the décor outdated; the building had been vacant for three years because of a non-compete agreement the landlord had with the previous bank. That meant it needed serious work. Furthermore, Williamstown Bank leaders wanted to craft the building into a community-focused space with a comfortable seating area, coffee shop and community room. The existing layout of the building did not support those features, so they decided to gut the interior and start from scratch. 

They chose La Macchia Group, a design firm in Milwaukee that specializes in financial institutions, to handle the project.

Anderson says a fundamental design decision they made early in the process was to move the main entrance of the bank from the back side of the building closer to the front, making it more visible. That allowed them to rearrange the interior to suit the community-welcoming space they were seeking.

“We wanted to eliminate the teller line and implement a fleet of ITMs [interactive teller machines] so that we could have room to put this coffee shop inside the branch,” says Anderson. 

The coffee shop, which attracts customers and potential customers and donates earnings to local nonprofits, is located where the teller line previously sat. It opens to a spacious lobby with several high tables with stools, low-top tables and couches. The layout supports Williamstown Bank’s universal tellers, who handle customer interactions such as opening accounts or helping with loan applications.

“By taking out the teller line and tearing down the walls, we increased our capacity to have conversations,” says Anderson, adding that employees are mobile and not tied to an office space. “There is also a pergola outside, so on a nice spring day, our employees can maybe help customers outside at the pergola.”

One challenge the designers faced was what to do with the vault left over from the previous bank. It didn’t fit the needs of Williamstown Bank, but it was built so securely into the structure that they couldn’t remove it.

They ultimately took the door off the vault, extracted the safe deposit boxes, and created a space inside where large cash deposits could be handled. The space includes a cash recycler and a couple of chairs.

“This gives us a place those transactions can be run without being visible to anyone coming in and out of the coffee shop,” Anderson says.

The renovation took about six months, and the location had a soft opening in February 2020. There had been no physical bank location in Lubeck since the previous bank closed that branch, so the new Williamstown Bank location was welcomed by the community, especially because of its coffee shop and other attractive features.

“We felt renovating the building was a good opportunity as a community bank to try something different,” says Anderson. “It was a good fit for who we were as a community bank.”

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