Chelsea Groton Bank held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its reinvented headquarters and branch at 904 Poquonnock Road, Groton. The ceremony began with welcoming remarks from Tony Sheridan of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern CT and Bruce Flax of the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce, who each spoke about the Bank’s partnership with local organizations and many contributions to the shared community. Anthony A. Joyce, III, President and CEO of Chelsea Groton Bank acknowledged the many hands that went into making this project a reality, and the benefits the new space will offer customers, the community, and the Chelsea Groton team, before cutting the ribbon together.
The ceremony concluded with Joyce presenting a check in the amount of $1,854 in honor of the year the Bank was founded, to the Groton Food Locker. Marge Fondulas, Director of Human Services at the Town of Groton, accepted the donation on behalf of the organization.
The Bank’s new headquarters includes a reinvented branch designed around delivering an extraordinary customer experience in an environment conducive to learning and collaboration, several community spaces for meetings and events, and comfortable workspaces built to foster teamwork and innovation. To see the new space and learn some of the ways the team and community will benefit from the facility, watch this video.
“The Bank’s vision states that we are an innovative financial services company that inspires its employees, customers, and communities to achieve their full potential. Our hope is that our reinvented headquarters does just that,” said Joyce. “We’ve been very intentional about the layout, opportunities for collaboration, and overall aesthetic, but also about the types of technology available in each space, and how we could share the investment we made in this state-of-the-art building with the greater community.”
“We’re excited to welcome the community in to really take advantage of this new building,” Joyce continued. “There are large and small video conferencing rooms, spaces for personal enrichment programs and public gatherings, and a reinvented branch designed with learning, mentoring and collaboration in mind. We’re thrilled to be able to provide our community with this powerful combination of exceptional people, service, and technology, in a space designed to encourage and strengthen personal relationships.”
Similar to the other branches Chelsea Groton has reinvented over the last few years, the Groton branch features a knowledge bar equipped with a lending library with books to peruse at the branch or borrow, access to video conferencing rooms for calling in subject matter experts, private spaces for opening accounts and processing loans, and complimentary coffee and conversation brewing all day. Educational programs are offered free of charge on topics relating to personal finance, business banking, credit, lifestyle topics, and more. To view the most current schedule of classes and events, visit www.chelseagroton.com/ChelseaUniversity.
For convenience, the new building has one walk-up and two drive-up Video Banking ATMs where, at the tap of a screen, customers are face-to-face with a local ChelseaLIVE video banker who can handle most transactions that would occur inside a branch during extended hours, Monday – Friday 8am – 7pm and Saturday 9am – 3pm. ATMs and online services are always available 24/7.
In tribute to the nearly 170 year-history of Chelsea Groton Bank, a section of the lobby is dedicated to sharing the Bank’s legacy through both artifacts and digital displays. It serves as a reflection of the many ways Chelsea Groton has supported the community, dating back to the Civil War through the Industrial Age, wars, pandemics, economic shifts, the Digital Age, and more.
“Chelsea Groton’s beginnings were humble, but with time and a focus on helping customers achieve their goals, we’ve grown into the region’s largest, independent community bank,” explained Joyce. “We’re immensely proud of our contributions to this community throughout our history and look forward to continuing to grow our legacy as we strive to make life better for the members of our shared community.”
