Financial Facility Case Study: A Winning Strategy

By Anne Cosgrove
Published in the May 2007 issue of Facility Executive

Thispast February, as the Vince Lombardi Trophy traveled around Indiana tomark the Indianapolis Colts’ Super Bowl victory, the headquartersbuilding of Old National Bank in Evansville was one of the stops alongthe way. A central atrium in the bank’s newly constructed headquartersbuilding enabled the company to take full advantage of the event.

“Havingthe atrium space really allowed us to become part of the celebration,”says Andrea Wunderlich, facilities manager for Old National. “We hadclose to 4,000 people come to see the trophy in a four hour period. Wewould never have been able to do that without the type of public spacewe now have.”

The 50-stop trophy tour (for which Old Nationalwas also a sponsor) was one of many community events that the bank nowhosts on a regular basis. “We offer the space to non-profitorganizations to use for fundraisers and awards banquets,” saysWunderlich. “We also work with the Arts Council of Southwestern Indianato display winning artwork. There have been a variety of events in theatrium.”

Prior to moving into the building in the fall of2004, Old National’s headquarters had been located in a smaller, lesshospitable facility several blocks away from the current site. “We wereoutgrowing that building,” explains Wunderlich, who has been with thebank for 20 years (10 of those in facilities management). “We had theoption to purchase the building and rebuild it to be what we needed.However, we decided to look at other options.”

Committed tostaying in downtown Evansville, the Old National team consideredavailable sites in the area. One potential location was on the banks ofthe Ohio River—also the original site of Old National, which firstopened its doors in the town back in 1834.

When Old Nationalexpressed an interest in the spot back in 2000, the land was owned bythe city of Evansville, which was using the space as a parking lot. Thecentral location on Main Street, coupled with the fact that it was thebank’s original locale, spurred Old National to pursue the site.

“Whenwe began to talk to city officials about acquiring the lot, one oftheir concerns was the loss of parking space,” says Wunderlich. “Eachyear in Evansville there is a riverfront festival, and the parking lotwas put into use not only during that event but throughout the year.”The issue was resolved when Old National agreed to build a 618-spaceparking garage as part of its headquarters project. The garage servesas private parking during the week and is open to the public forspecial events.

The Game Plan

Withthe site selected, Old National set out to hire an architectural firmto design the new building. With a desire to work with a local firm,the bank reached out to two firms for proposals. Ultimately, VeazeyParrott Durkin & Shoulders (VPDS) in Evansville, was chosen as theprincipal architectural firm on the project. The St. Louis, MO officeof HOK (Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum) was chosen as the design architect.

ExplainsWunderlich, “We wanted to work with a local firm, but we also requiredthat the firm partner with a larger company that had experience inmulti-story glass buildings. This type of design was not typical inEvansville, so we wanted VPDS to find a firm that could bring thatexpertise to the project.”

Explains Joe Robertson, AIA, vicepresident and senior project manager for HOK, “VPDS was the prime firmon the project. That firm held all the contracts, and we worked forthem as the designers.”

Team Focus

Thenew headquarters represents a renewed outlook for the 173-year-oldfinancial institution. The quality of services and expertise providedby the bank remains the same; however, the physical characteristics ofthe building are very different from Old National’s previousheadquarters.

The most noticeable difference is the extensive use ofglass all along the building envelope. The transparency of the designgives the facility an open, airy atmosphere that is new to thistraditional financial organization.

The expanses of glassalong the entire building were incorporated for several reasons—theproximity to the Ohio River being one. “The site affords a magnificentview of the river,” explains Robertson. “We wanted everyone in thebuilding to be able to take those in.

“The curvature of thebuilding came out of the notion of having better views up and down theriver,” Robertson continues. “It was a way of not boxing it off as asquare building would.”

The transparency of the building goesbeyond being an issue of aesthetics, however. When VPDS and HOK took onthe project, the bank discussed with them what it wanted to accomplishwith the construction of the new building. There were severalconditions that needed to be met to make the building a useful andsuccessful facility for the company.

For one, Old Nationalwanted to capitalize on the opportunity to place related departmentsnear to each other. “In the old building,” says Robertson, “therewasn’t really a rhyme or reason to where individual departments werelocated. But with a blank slate, we were able to speak to departmentheads to find out who needed to be next to each other. We then began todetermine how big the various spaces needed to be, and from there, wemoved onto blocking out the spaces in the floor plan and stacking thebuilding.”

The building would consist of an eight story towerjoined to an adjacent three story building by an atrium. “All of thepublic spaces are on the first three floors of both buildings,”explains Wunderlich, “with those spaces linked by the atrium inbetween.”

The first floor contains the banking center and TheBistro restaurant. Back of house spaces on that floor include abuilding equipment room, a security area, and a loading dock. The upperfloors of the tower contain offices, training centers, and conferencerooms.

With most of the private offices placed in the centralpart of the building, the majority of employees were placed on theperimeter in open floor plan configurations. “By turning the building‘inside out,’ we reduced the number of private offices by about 100 toopt for the open office atmosphere,” says Wunderlich.

“Theidea was this would increase networking and improve how peopleinteracted,” she continues. “In the old building, a lot of people wouldwalk directly into their office, spend the day in there, and thenleave. We wanted them to have a little more interaction, not only froma support and socialization aspect, but also from a cross sellingaspect.”

The exceptions to the open plan configuration weredepartment managers and members of senior management, who remained inprivate offices.

Wunderlich notes that while most employeesare pleased with the open office approach, there are those who miss theprivacy of an office. “There are some people that were displaced fromoffices that love it,” she says. “And there are also those who, everytime I see them, say, ‘Anytime you want to give me my door back wouldbe fine.’ It depends on their personality and how they do business. Wehaven’t gone backwards on that just yet, though there may be a pointwhere we do add some private offices.”

Efficient Maneuvers

Controllingenergy consumption in the building was another important focus for theproject, and the use of glass around its envelope played a part inreaching that goal. “We wanted Old National to consider otherapproaches—beyond a brick building punctuated with windows,” explainsRobertson. “We also wanted to take advantage of new technologies forheating, air conditioning, and lighting.”

In terms oflighting, the glass on the building envelope allows natural daylight toflood into the building. To maximize the potential of this naturallighting, the designers specified optical light shelves to be placedabove the windows.

Explains Robertson, “The shelves improvethe lighting inside by redirecting daylight deep into the space. Inresponse, the artificial lights are electronically dimmed, whichreduces energy consumption.”

Anunderfloor air distribution system was used for heating and coolingpurposes. (The raised floors also house wiring underneath.)

Energyefficiency was taken into account when locating the mechanical rooms aswell. Heating and cooling equipment is located on the first floor ofthe tower with another set of equipment on the fourth floor. Thisstrategy was intended to avoid overworking the systems, since each setonly needs to distribute air upward no more than four floors.

“Weare planning to begin a study into the energy usage in the building,”says Wunderlich. “In the beginning, we were using more energy than weneeded to. The slabs in between each floor were accumulating a lot ofheat during the day, and we were originally running the cooling systemfrom 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. During the off hours, we simply circulatedair. We found that in the morning, we were struggling to gain controlof the temperature.

“Eventually, we found it is moreefficient to run the system 24 hours a day at about 80% capacity,rather than the 100% as we were doing previously,” continuesWunderlich. “We haven’t conducted a study yet, because we didn’t feellike we were ready, but now that we are at a point where we thinkeverything is working as it should. Our maintenance staff has done afantastic job at learning how to manipulate the system.”

Home Field Advantage

Thenew outlook for Old National has increased productivity and improvedthe bank’s profile in its hometown. “I like the fact that we are ableto interact more with members of the community,” says Wunderlich. “Thathas been largely because the building has provided us with a space tohost events comfortably and securely.” Back on its original site, thebank has found a home for many years to come.

This article was based on interviews with Robertson (joe.robertson@hok.com) and Wunderlich (Andrea_Wunderlich@oldnational.com.

To share your new construction or renovation story, please send an e-mail to avazquez@groupc.com. To read past Showcase features, visit www.facilityexecutive.com.

To discuss some of your interesting experiences come to FacilityBlog! The address is facilityexecutive.com/facilityblog.