By Carol Coultas,Business Writer
Northeast Bank’s new headquarters enables growth in commercial lending.

LEWISTON – Don’t be fooled by the backhoes and dump trucks outside Northeast Bank’s new corporate headquarters.

As of 9 this morning, the newest tenant in the city’s revamped Southern Gateway is open for business.

The four-story brick building helps anchor the gateway with its neighbors, Oxford Networks, Andover College and VIP Auto. It also brings a physical structure to the Bethel-born bank that allows it to consolidate all of its back-office operations, streamline its administration and focus on a new priority: commercial lending.

“We’ve added four new lenders in commercial banking because we’ve been seeing tremendous growth in this community,” said James Delamater, president of the bank. “It’s an accommodation to this market.”

In June 2004, the bank reported $69.7 million in commercial loans; by March of this year that figure had risen to $74.9 million and it continues to grow. In 2003, the commercial loan portfolio showed $57.4 million.

The new space allows the bank to consolidate about 95 of its 208 employees in one place.

Under one roof

The commercial lending arm will now have its sales, loan processing and loan servicing staff under one roof.

That means the paperwork connected with loan processing can be centralized, giving the sales staff more time to get out in the community. The bank is also opening a small-business loan center as part of its move.

“There is a niche for the $50,000 loan and under,” said Marcel Blais, senior vice president of commercial and retail banking. “We are specifically targeting that group to support that niche.”

Blais said the amount of time and paperwork involved in a $20,000 deal is the same as a $2 million deal. And his staff works on both.

“Our staff was productive, but stressed. It made us consider how we could reorganize the work flow,” he said.

The commercial loan operation will share space on the first floor of the new 27,000-square-foot building with its retail operation. As visitors walk into the lobby, they will see a counter of tellers to the left. A drive-through window on the side of the building lets customers do their banking without leaving their cars. A small call center off to the right side of the lobby handles the bulk of incoming calls, or steers callers to the appropriate person or department.

The second floor houses the sales and marketing, electronic banking, security and other offices. As part of the move, Northeast installed rooftop generators to ensure its own power supply in case of an outage. The Canal Street building is the source for the bank’s entire network of computer and phone systems.

“It still amazes me,” said Delamater as he surveyed the computer room, recalling the days 25 years ago when he first began working for the bank.

Moving with police escort

Back then, there were nine employees, and the bank’s assets totaled about $18 million, compared with $600 million today. The computer mainframe in 1980 would have taken up a whole room. The mainframe in the new building is about the size of a bathroom vanity. It required a police escort when it was moved from the bank’s old headquarters in the Engine House in Auburn to its new home.

“Very valuable information in there,” quipped Delamater.

The third-floor houses loan processing and accounting personnel, as well as human resources and training rooms. About 85 percent of the furnishings and workstation components were refurbished from the bank’s previous operations centers and reinstalled in the new building to keep costs down.

On the fourth floor are the executive offices and conference rooms. The entire building is bathed in natural sunlight from oversized windows that give terrific cityscape views.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for 11 a.m. Sept. 21 will be open to the public.

Delamater is excited about the next chapter in the bank’s history, which the new building represents. While he sees continued growth in the bank’s future, he emphasized that it won’t waver from its fundamental philosophy of offering needs-based banking services.

Unlike some other banks, Northeast will send customers elsewhere if their financial products don’t best meet the client’s needs. Delamater believes that when you always act in the customers’ best interests, they will come back to you and long-term relationships are born.

“People are responding,” he said “We’re seeing a tremendous increase in business.”