The Bancorp unveils downtown office
Oct. 26, 2023
The consensus among those first to see the new Bancorp office essentially has been this: It doesn’t feel like you’re in Sioux Falls.
“This feels like I’m working in a larger city” is what Maria Wainwright, the company’s chief marketing officer, keeps hearing.
“We wanted it to feel like that,” she continued. “Because a lot of our fintech partners are places people aspire to be. You go there and think, ‘I want to work there,’ and we wanted this building to have the same feel.”
The space, designed by ISG – another tenant in the building – will accommodate up to 250 employees, with an estimated 175 moving in day one.
Built by Journey Construction, the office encompasses half of the sixth floor and all of the seventh and eighth floors in the 10-story building now known as The Bancorp Building at Cherapa Place. It’s on the east bank of the Big Sioux River, just south of Sixth Street.
“We worked with Journey and their subcontractors and tried to source this as locally as possible across the trades,” said Greg Garry, chief operating officer.
“Investing into the space is not just about us — it’s about the impact you can have on the local economy and the local employees.”
The office is designed to be “modern without being cold,” Wainwright said. “I think it’s a badge of honor to work here. People have a sense of pride in working here, to be part of something so special and unique and different.”
An open staircase allows for easy flow between the floors.
The layout of the space is designed so individual offices don’t take up all the window space, instead leaving much of it open to workstations.
“We’ve got a newer employee who came over and was like: ‘I actually get the views. I get the natural light,'” said Ryan Harris, executive vice president and head of fintech solutions.
Conference rooms intentionally are spaced out to encourage employees who usually wouldn’t interact to run into each other.
And an expansive work cafe offers break space in addition to meeting spots.
The Bancorp worked with the Washington Pavilion’s new arts consulting service to source local art throughout the space.
“They did a phenomenal job showing me options,” Wainwright said. “We picked a color scheme for each floor, and they got them framed and installed, and were extremely professional and did a really great job.”
The office opened for employees in recent weeks and held its official ribbon-cutting today. The impact on recruitment and retention already is noticeable, Garry said.
“In the six months leading up to moving here, we saw only three people out of 175 leave the company, and in the first six weeks, we’ve had no one resign,” he said. “The banking industry’s average turnover is 18 to 19 percent, and we’re through half a year tracking 1.5 percent turnover, so the investments are already paying off.”
The bank recently changed from a Delaware charter to become a national bank. While it will maintain a presence in Delaware, The Bancorp headquarters became Sioux Falls as of Jan. 1.
The Bancorp was founded in 1999 and most recently had its Sioux Falls office at 69th Street and Western Avenue.
In addition to putting its name on the new downtown building, it was key to back up the branding with community involvement, Wainwright said. The company donated $200,000 to Friends of the Big Sioux River to support a new staff member to work with farmers on ways to mitigate runoff to the river.
“The health of the river is a very important thing to the community of Sioux Falls,” Wainwright said. “We have a ‘green team’ that’s always very involved in environmental volunteerism … and we’re also the premier sponsor of RiverFest.”
Employees at The Bancorp have the flexibility to work off-site two days per week and in some cases be fully remote, but with the new office, many are opting to work more days there than required, Garry said.
“It’s up considerably without any change in policy,” he said.
The company is hiring “really across the organization: IT roles, compliance, security, risk management, project management, relationship management,” Harris added.
The building already is showing an impact there too.
“The number of applications per job has almost doubled since we moved in here,” Garry said. “Married with the dramatic drop in turnover, and you start to see the ROI on this space within a month. Being eight stories up, it’s just a different way to seeing Sioux Falls that frankly not a lot of people get to see. … You’re watching from up here as the city transforms.”
The Bancorp joins ISG and Eide Bailly LLP in moving into the new Cherapa Place offices. MarketBeat plans to move in the coming weeks.
