Pioneer Bank has signed a lease to open its first downtown Schenectady branch in the building next to Bow Tie Cinemas.
The branch will occupy the entire first floor of the five-story Witbeck Building at 426 State St., which is actually a row of four contiguous buildings that stretches from Aperitivo Bistro to the Witbeck Building.
Pioneer Bank will lease about 2,000 square feet from Mazzone Hospitality owner Angelo Mazzone and local real estate attorney Paul Sciocchetti, who bought the buildings in 2006 and overhauled them for use as a restaurant, loft apartments and office space.
“This was the last space that was remaining in the building and they opted to rehab it and make it their own,” said Sciocchetti.
The independent mutual community bank is headquartered in Troy and operates 17 branches in and around the Capital Region. The only Schenectady County branch is located in Rotterdam.
“We have a very successful branch in Rotterdam, but felt that we needed to give another location to Rotterdam customers who live and work closer to downtown Schenectady,” said Pioneer Bank President and CEO Thomas Amell. “But equally as important, we’re really high on the resurgence of downtown Schenectady. If you go down there any time of the day, it’s revitalized. The restaurants are full. People are on the street.”
The Schenectady branch will have the look and feel of two new branches the bank opened last year in Clifton Park and downtown Albany.
Those branches were designed to get customers back in their local banks, Amell said. In place of a traditional teller line, they feature teller pods — freestanding stations that eliminate the barrier between teller and customer. They also feature a retail shop where guests can buy mugs, umbrellas, piggy banks, coffee and chocolates, with all proceeds supporting local charities. The bank also received authorization from the U.S. Postal Service to ship packages and letters for customers.
The branches also come complete with free Wi-Fi, community meeting rooms and interactive ATMs, which allow users to get live video help from a real person should they need it.
“We’re a community-based bank,” said Amell. “We want to deal with customers faceto-face. We feel we can give the best guidance and create the best relationships when business is done face-to-face. We have all the online services that other banks do, but we’d love nothing more than for customers to come in and meet our world-class staff.”
Pioneer Bank is awaiting federal regulatory approval to begin construction on the new branch.
“It should be any day now, and then we’ll start construction right away,” Amell said.
Pioneer hopes to have a grand opening in March 2015.