CLAY — Baldwinsville–based Seneca Savings bank plans to move its Liverpool branch, located at 105 2nd St., to a former NBT Bank building it acquired on Dec. 3  at 7799 Oswego Road in Clay.

The bank, previously named Seneca Federal Savings & Loan Association before changing it in 2014, purchased the property for $285,000, according to Onondaga County’s online property records. Cushman Wakefield / Pyramid Brokerage Company brokered the real-estate transaction.

Seneca Savings was preparing to renovate its aging Liverpool branch when it was told by one of its customers that the former NBT Bank property was available, says Katrina Russo, executive administrative assistant at Seneca Savings. The customer didn’t know that Seneca Savings was already seeking to upgrade the Liverpool branch.

“The timing was just right,” Russo says. “Our building is very old.” It was built in 1970, according to the county’s property records. The bank had been receiving bids from contractors for the Liverpool upgrades at the time, she adds. Some bids were more than $700,000.

The timeline for the move is not set in stone yet, says Russo, because the bank is waiting for approval from the town of Clay before work to improve the new property can start. The new location, once completed, will represent a new, modern design the bank has planned since it adopted a strategic plan in 2013 outlining all major projects for the following five years, according to Russo. Once the building in Clay is complete, it will be used as a model for upgrades at the Baldwinsville and North Syracuse branches, she says.

“It definitely will look more modern than the old location, but we still want to be a community bank,” she says, emphasizing the importance of the latter.

She says the bank hopes the build-out will begin by the start of summer and be completed in time for the move (which should only take a couple days) to take place at the end of the season. The bank hired Auburn–based Beardsley Design Associates Architecture, Engineering, Landscape Architecture, D.P.C. to handle the renovations.

Immediate benefits of the new location include improved customer parking and accessibility, says Russo. “The parking is probably double what it is now,” she says. Also, she added, the Liverpool property sits right next to a large intersection that makes entering and exiting the parking lot difficult, which is not an issue at the Clay location.

The building in Clay has 2,294 square feet of floor space, and the current Liverpool office has 2,364 square feet, according to Onondaga County’s online property records.

Russo says Seneca Savings intends to sell its property in Liverpool, which includes the current branch location as well as the property next door, 113 2nd St., which the bank purchased in 2005 for $222,500. The total assessed value of both sites combined, in 2014, was $341,000, according to Onondaga County’s property records.

The site at 113 2nd St. has an abandoned building on it, which formerly housed a store called Venesky Appliance. The bank previously explored leveling the building to add more parking, but the plan never materialized. Both properties will be put on sale together after the move to Clay is complete, says Vincent Fazio, Seneca Savings’ executive vice president and controller.

According to Seneca Savings’ president and CEO, Joseph Vitale, the projected cost of moving to the new location exceeds $500,000, which is on top of the $285,000 spent to buy the property. Despite the costs, Fazio says, this option is more economically feasible than renovating the current branch. 

Fazio contends that community members will be very pleased when they see the outcome of the extensive renovations. “We’re very excited about this branch.”

Seneca Savings anticipates no employee turnover from the move: The branch’s five full-time employees and one part-time employee are expected to stay on at the new location, says Russo.

Other changes

More changes are coming to Seneca Savings apart from the branch relocation and face-lift. It is also looking to upgrade its electronic infrastructure by adding mobile-banking services. No date has been established yet for when the feature will be made available, but Russo says mobile banking “is definitely going to be up and running this year.”

The planned changes come following a productive 2014 for the bank. Seneca Savings lost eight full-time employees from normal attrition last year, but hired another 14 to replace the workers and to expand some departments, says Russo. “We developed our commercial-lending area … and we hired two outside mortgage loan originators,” she says. 

Seneca Savings currently has 45 employees — 39 full time and six part time.

The bank also established a call center in 2014 in its main office in Baldwinsville, staffed by two employees, which Russo says was done to improve efficiency.

The changes may have helped contribute to what was an up year for Seneca Savings in 2014. After posting a net loss of $208,000 in 2013, the bank generated net income of $181,000 last year, the bank reported. It also made $17 million in new loans, helping to boost the bank’s end-of-year loan balance to more than $87 million, up from just shy of $80.5 million a year prior. Fazio says the bank will expand its loan output significantly this year as well. “We’re looking to put on, just in mortgage loans, $30 million,” he says.        

SYRACUSE —  Leadership Greater Syracuse (LGS), a nonprofit offering a yearlong civic-engagement training program, announced it will recognize two individuals and one business at its Distinguished Community Leader Awards luncheon on April 29.   

This year’s winners of the annual Distinguished Community Leader Awards are:

– Community Trustee Individual Award — Christine Kovar, executive director of Whole Me, Inc.

– Community Trustee Business Award — St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center

– LGS Alumni Achievement Award — Renee and Tim Duffy, LGS Class of 2007 and 2008, respectively

“As LGS celebrates its 25th anniversary, we are especially honored to recognize Christine Kovar, St. Joseph’s Hospital and the Duffys as they are committed to our community and are making it a better place to live and work,” Pam Brunet, LGS executive director, said in a news release.

Christine Kovar started the nonprofit Whole Me, Inc., because she saw the need for services in Central New York for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families.  As the executive director, she has created “life changing programs so that children and their families would have access and opportunities to understand, participate, and excel in a hearing world,” LGS said in the release.

As a community anchor organization, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center “plays a vital role in lifting up its impoverished neighborhood and has become an economic engine for growth in the neighborhoods where it has facilities — specifically on the Near West Side and North Side.”

Following their graduation from LGS, Renee and Tim Duffy have taken an active role in the community. Most notably, they have used their entrepreneurial spirit to develop Philanthropic Foodies, an annual event featuring local chefs where proceeds from participants are donated to local nonprofits, the release stated.

LGS established the Distinguished Community Leader Awards in 2008 to honor and recognize “exceptional civic leadership. The award recipients are men and women and organizations who exemplify the LGS mission,” according to the release. 

The awards luncheon takes place at the Holiday Inn Syracuse/Liverpool on Electronics Parkway on April 29. Registration is at 11:30 a.m., with the lunch and program to begin at about noon. Tickets are $70 each. For more information about the event, call (315) 422-5471 or visit the LGS website: www.leadershipgreatersyracuse.org. 

LGS says it is a collaboration of the City of Syracuse, Onondaga County, Onondaga Community College, and CenterState CEO, with major support from Honeywell, Inc., United Radio, Inc., The Hayner Hoyt Corporation, and Lockheed Martin. 

LGS media partners include the Business Journal News Network, Time Warner Cable News, and Syracuse.com.