STORY AND PHOTO
BY KEITH LIPPOLDT
klippoldt@gbtribune.com
Already having a footprint in the city with two banks, Equity Bank has broken ground on its new site, located at 4101 10th St. in Great Bend. To kick off the start of the new Equity Bank prototype building, a groundbreaking ceremony was held Thursday afternoon.
Megan Barfield, CEO of the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce, welcomed attendees from the City, Barton County, Hutton Construction, the general public and several representatives from Equity Bank to the groundbreaking event. “I first want to thank Equity Bank for this investment in Great Bend. And thank you all for coming.”
Barton County Commission Chair Tricia Schlessiger also spoke to the crowd saying, “The Barton County Commissioners want to thank Equity Bank for inviting us all to attend your groundbreaking. On behalf of all of us, we’d like to congratulate you. We believe in investing in growth and new infrastructure and this bank helps us and our community contribute to this goal. Coming from an agriculture and business background, I recognize the need to have quality banking community partners in our community. Congratulations, and I hope the Kansas weather cooperates and you have a safe construction timeline.”
Hunter White from Hutton Construction, the design build contractor for this project, described the new building.
“What we have here, in a nutshell, is a two-story, beautiful bank building,” White said. “It’s about 6,200 square feet. It’s got a handful of tellers space, offices, conference rooms, a new vault, and the front of it’s really beautiful. We started last week, so currently we’re on schedule to be completed in March of next year.”
Equity founder and Chairman Brad Elliott told those in attendance how excited Equity Bank was to be building this new building in Great Bend.
“We’re excited to put our prototype here. This is our new branch style. We think this brings different services than we’ve had in our other facilities, in other markets,” Elliott said. “It’s something we’re excited to introduce into Great Bend as the first place to bring this. We’re looking for something that’s new, something that’s easily convenient to the marketplace, and something that we can service out of. It’s also our regional hub, so it’s a little larger than some of our other facilities. We’re excited to be here. We’re excited to make this investment in this community. Great Bend is someplace we want to be. Obviously, we’re making a commitment here, and I think this shows that, in some ways, that we see the future that Equity can have.”
During the meet and greet after the ceremony, Elliott was asked about the future of the two existing locations.
“We’re going to consolidate the other two into this one. Because it’s more where the traffic patterns are. Our goal is to be the technology provider and the innovator in the banking space in western Kansas. And so we think this is a great place to do it.”
Elliott also spoke of the new technology in place and how it will have the ability to change how and when you can do your banking business. He mentioned the new Integrated Teller Machines (ITM), their new app, and other technology that will prove to be superior to others in the market.
“By having ITMs, we have the ability to bring new services. You can make a deposit at two in the morning. You can make a withdrawal at two in the morning as a bank customer from us and have those services. We also can bring those to you in a bilingual situation. When you’re using that ITM, if you’re bilingual, we have bilingual people helping you service that. So it’s really bringing technology.
“We want the local presence, so that’s why we have the building. But with that, we also understand that people are bigger than just local, and they need different technologies and services than just what the traditional bank has brought local. So we have the local services, which is what’s happening inside the bank with Sean and his team, but then we also have the other services that’s happening electronically.”
