After opening branches in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, bank plans for more
Ben Lucas, branch manager, left, and Larry Loeser, president, stand inside the new Harrington Bank location. Photo by Kirk RossÂ
By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
It sounds like the opening of an old joke, but even though Ben Lucas laughs when he tells it, he’s not kidding.
“A lady walked in the other day and said she was looking for a can of red paint,†Lucas manager of Harrington Bank’s new branch on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard said. “We told her we were a bank now, and she said ‘that’s nice but where’s your paint.’â€
Lucas and his staff expect to get a good bit of that since the bank opened its doors August 27 in the fully renovated former home of Piedmont Decorators.
Anyone who remembers the paint and remodeling store would have a hard time picturing it in the building the bank now occupies.
About all that’s similar are the large steel trusses that held the building in place. The walls, roof and about everything else is new. Wood paneling, cabinets and a string of small offices line the former showroom. The cookies and coffee that are one of the bank’s signature offerings to its customers are new as well.
Joe Paradis, project architect for Dixon Weinstein Architects, said they worked practically from scratch, using just the basic steel frame with its high roof. The idea was to recreate the feel of the big banking halls of old.
“I was joking with someone the other day that we really did make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,†Paradis said.
Harrington President Larry Loeser said he was impressed with how the building turned out, even though the extensive renovations and the town permitting process took longer than anticipated.
The addition gives Harrington a northern location in addition to its Southern Village spot and its home office off N.C. 54 on the western outskirts of town.
The benefits of having a location on the north side of the community, he said, are starting to become apparent.
“It’s going great,†Loeser said in a recent interview. “We’ve opened a lot of new accounts and got some great deposits. We’ve also been visited by a good many of our existing customers.â€
Loeser said the MLK branch and another the bank opened recently in North Raleigh aren’t the only expansion plans for Harrington.
The bank is right at the minimum in the number of branches it wanted to have in place by now, Loeser said, and has plans to keep growing. Harrington is zeroing on another location in Cary and continues a search for a location in the downtown Carrboro and Chapel Hill area.
“The idea is to keep the business growing at a measured pace,†Loeser said.
With total assets as of the end of July of $233.24 million, Loeser said Harrington is seeing success in its appeal to customers that want more personal service.
“We don’t focus on either businesses or individuals,†he said, “we focus on service.â€
That translates into different forms, he said, like having a live person answer the phone or knowing a customer by name and having an understanding what their typical needs are.
The cookies are an obvious attempt to give the bank a down home feel, but they’re popular with customers — leftovers are unheard of — as is the bank’s eschewing of teller windows, placing their customer service associates behind desks at ground level. Banking at Harrington is conducted while seated.
The personal touch applies when it comes to loans as well. Business loans slightly outweigh personal loans in Harrington’s $174 million portfolio.
Loeser said that one of the theories behind a local bank is the ability to look deeper than credit scores, to try to get to know the customer and their ideas better. Loeser said being closer to the community means Harrington is willing to work with startups and businesses like health clubs and restaurants that larger banks might tend to avoid.
“We have a chance to really dig in and learn about a customer,†he said.