PORTLAND, Maine — Bangor Savings Bank plans to build a $5 million Portland office and another in downtown Brunswick, which the bank’s CEO said stands to boost employment at the bank’s Hammond Street technology center in Bangor.
“We have a space problem in Bangor because of business elsewhere,” bank President and CEO Bob Montgomery-Rice said Thursday.
The bank said its planned investments for southern Maine total $10 million, including reconfigurations of a corporate office at 280 Fore St. in Portland and construction of two new branches and offices on Marginal Way in Portland and at the long-vacant corner of Maine and Mason streets in Brunswick.
Montgomery-Rice said the approximately 750-employee bank has continued to boost loan volume with an improving economy and seeks to increase service to southern Maine, partly by moving several loan officers to a Marginal Way location that will have its own parking lot closer to I-295.
The shift will involve some hiring, he said, with at least six full-time positions added for the Brunswick expansion and some hiring possible with the move of the Portland corporate offices out to Marginal Way. Montgomery-Rice said the bank expects to open the new Portland and Brunswick buildings next summer.
The bank plans to move its 280 Fore St. branch to a former Northeast Bank branch location at 77 Middle St., keeping conference space, an ATM and some corporate staff at 280 Fore St.
The new offices anticipate growth in the bank’s business clients. For each 170 businesses using Bangor Savings to manage payroll, Montgomery-Rice said the bank adds a position at its Bangor technology center on Hammond Street.
He said the bank’s pace of growth will require it to expand or seek new space for such employees in the next three to five years.
The bank’s expansion in southern Maine comes after Camden National Bank expanded its reach by acquiring the Bank of Maine earlier this year, giving the federally chartered bank more locations in Cumberland and York counties.
Montgomery-Rice said with the merger Bangor Savings has been able to pick up new clients in each county where it operates.
“Whenever there’s a bank merger, it causes changes and that’s an opportunity for us to talk to new customers,” Montgomery-Rice said.
Camden National became the largest Maine-based bank, by deposits, through the merger completed in July.
The bank also announced a batch of philanthropic donations Thursday, funding through Maine-A-Wish Maine the wishes of two children with life-threatening illnesses. It also announced donations of $5,000 to Make-A-Wish Maine and four other nonprofits, which are the Maine Cancer Foundation, Good Shepherd Food Bank, the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals and the Maine chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.