Citizens Bank Campus project shaping up

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Despite all of the rain this spring, construction of the Citizens Bank Campus continues as planned with most of the massive buildings now taking a recognizable shape.

“We are absolutely on schedule to finish getting all of the buildings closed in by the end of the year by the winter. So we have zero concerns right now about making our dates for next summer,” said Mike Knipper, head of property and an executive vice president at Citizens, during a recent tour of the construction site. “The mild winter certainly helped us significantly.”

The 123-acre parcel off of Greenville Avenue and route 295 is being utilized by the bank to consolidate operations from existing office centers in the region into a single campus location. The facility has been touted as an upgraded work environment for its employees compared to current banking facilities, which the company believes will improve employee retention, attract new talent, and enhance workers’ collaboration efforts.

Once complete, all of the campus structures will have approximately 840,670 gross square feet of footage. Two four-story office buildings, a contact center, an amenities building, a connector building and a four-story parking garage are currently under various states construction. Some of the amenities available to the 3,000 employees who will work on site will include a coffee bar, a branch bank, a technology bar, and learning and training center. Each building will have a cafeteria, equipped pantries on every floor, along with break areas.

While the names of the buildings will be changed in the future based on employee feedback, Building A will consist of the contact center, while buildings B and C will serve as office buildings. Enclosed by windows, employees will be no further than 45 feet from natural lighting at any time, and chosen color schemes will keep with look and feel of the landscape of Rhode Island.

Other features will include a rain garden that will collect runoff water, a courtyard, and an event lawn. Outdoor tables, fire tables, barbecue grills, stone seat walls and a water feature with seating available for 300 people will also be available for employee use.

A community sports field complex, which will be open to the public, will include a baseball field, soccer field, basketball courts, tennis court, volleyball court and formal bocce courts. Walking and fitness loops, along with a nature trail and bike route will also be constructed.

Sustainability for the new complex has been a key factor in the project’s design, and includes maintaining existing natural habitats and wetlands, creating a groundwater retention system. According to Knipper, there are three projects now taking place at the site; the construction of the campus, the on and off ramps from Route 295, and the installation of sewer and water lines.

Campus construction

So far, the largest obstacle construction teams have faced is ledge on the site and its removal. Since construction began earlier this year, over 100,000 cubic yards of ledge and rock have been processed using approximately 83,000 pounds of explosives.

“It is a complicated site, there’s a lot of ledge a lot of moving rocks, and every time we think we have found and moved the ledge we need to move it seems like a new piece crops up,” said Knipper.

All steel work on site should be completed within the next two weeks, with a total of approximately 2,298 tons of the material being used. More than 3,500 employees signed the last pieces of steel to be placed in building C, becoming part of the buildings interior.

The parking garage, which allows for parking of more than 1,200 cars, is mainly complete with plumbing and electrical work now being tackled. More than 150 workers are now on site daily, and at its peak will grow to about 400 workers from 25 to 30 different companies.

Employees will soon be asked for suggestions for building and meeting room names. Workers are being kept informed of progress through town hall meetings and mock-ups of office equipment being displayed at other bank locations.

According to bank representatives, environmental sustainability and protective measure during and after construction are as important to the company as they were to nearby residents who voiced concerns during the site’s planning and approval phases.

Tucker’s dump a four-acre landfill that had been on site for more than 50 years, was remediated as part of the project. Around 60,000 tons of material was excavated to clean the site, and lead and other potentially toxic substances of concern have been removed and taken to the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation and paid for by Citizens.

“We could have just capped it and put some dirt on the top of it and called it a day, but we thought that the right answer was to get rid of all of that. It took time and money but we thought it was the right thing to do,” said Hugh Peltz, senior vice president of property corporate services with the bank.

According to Knipper, every well has been tested in the nearby area, with the furthest being three quarters of a mile away, and there has been no contamination from construction.

“The environmental regulations are so tough. DEM has been consistent in enforcing them, they are here all the time, they’re on us like everyone else, but it’s consistent. Environmentally I feel really good about the place because the landfills gone, there’s no risk of future contamination that we can tell, there was nothing in there that was of any serious magnitude,” he said. “Testing all of the neighbors wells, although it was an extremely conservative move, it was a nice comforting move to know nothing had ever been contaminated.”

More than 60 acres of the site will go undeveloped. Roads located on the property will have “critter crossings” located underneath them for wildlife, while lighting took into account light pollution in the neighborhood. Native plantings, including pollinator habitats that attract birds and insects have been incorporated into the design, and more than 900 trees will be planted.

Buildings will also offer the latest energy efficient technologies. Cafeterias will have a full composting program and a waste oil recovery system to create biofuels. There will also be a centralized waste-processing program, which will handle trash and recycling. A wellness center will offer medical care, and a fitness program for staff to use.

Highway ramps

According to Charles St. Martin with the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (DOT), necessary approvals for the construction of the $6 million route 295 on and off ramps, with costs being split evenly between the bank and the state, are now in place. During the planning process, bank officials reiterated the importance of having the ramps built, saying the project couldn’t be completed without them.

“There was an environmental assessment process that we had to do for the ramps, and we just received the finding on that,” said St. Martin, and while there are still some procedural checks to go through, he doesn’t see any further obstacles that would impede construction.

“We’re excited to say that we got our finding of no significant impact from the federal highway folks about two weeks ago, so we are now full speed ahead on the ramps,” said Knipper. “It was a huge relief.”

Ramp work is expected to begin in four to six weeks, with work anticipated to be completed by the end of the year to accommodate employees and equipment moving in. With the ramps, a total of three new traffic lights will be installed, one at the main entrance of the campus and the others on each side of the route 295 bridge over Greenville Avenue.

Nearby residents have expressed concerns about traffic coming off of the highway and the impact that will have on the area. While there is seating for 3,000 employees, there’s a little over 2,600 parking spaces that will be available for use. Knipper states that parking isn’t built for 100 percent occupancy as there will be multiple shifts throughout the day, and not all 3,000 people will work at the same time.

He said most employees would work during the day shift and start arriving around 7 a.m. by 10 a.m., the majority of those daytime employees will have arrived. Around 70 percent of employees will arrive from the south, and will use a dedicated right hand lane to enter the campus.

“They won’t have any impact on the neighborhood at all, other than the houses that go from the entrance to the highway, those are the ones that will see the greatest volume of traffic,” said Knipper. Now what I can’t guarantee of course is that now there’s a new highway ramp here, will people come down to Greenville Avenue to Route 44, that’s the piece we don’t know. We anticipate there will be an increase from that because Route 44 is so bad.”

He believes home values will increase because of the infrastructure being added, along with a new employment source in the

“The win to the residents and the businesses is that a lot of businesses are going to see a boost, and the smart ones will aggressively court our employees,” said Knipper. “Businesses in town are already seeing an increase from construction. The town wins because its revenue they didn’t have, and it’s revenue that doesn’t increase expenses.”

Sewer and water

“Work as gone a bit more slowly than we anticipated because of the weather. Right now, they’ve just put a second work crew out there, and we have the potential to put another work crew in place,” said Jamie Samons, public affairs manager and Jamie Samon with the Narragansett Bay Commission (NBC) overseeing the sewer and water line extension project.

So far, about 4,000 feet of water lines and 1,700 feet of sewer pipe has been installed, along with seven manholes and four fire hydrants. Work which started underneath the 295 bridge towards the campus’s main entrance is mainly complete, and crews have now moved to the other end of the project near Salina Avenue

“We are slightly behind schedule right now, the multitudes of inches of rain in April and May that didn’t help. As soon as they’d dig the trench it became a flood zone, but they’ll catch up. Our goal still is to have that finished by the end of the year too,” said Knipper.

Knipper also highlighted the benefits the sewer line will have on local residents, as they will not have to pay for the assessment, only the connection to the system, along with water lines. He also recognized and appreciated the impact the work has had on residents of the area around Greenville Avenue.

“If you live on that street, no matter how well we manage it, it’s nine months of pain,” he said. “It’s being done right, it’s being done properly, but it’s still nine months of traffic issues.”

While the project received pushback from area residents during the initial planning phase, complaints have now dwindled to less than a trickle, and Knipper stated that the majority of the feedback he’s received from residents has been positive. He credits Mayor Joseph Polisena, the Town Council and other officials in moving the project forward towards its opening in the summer of 2018.

“This town is an example of what is right if you want to do business with big companies, because one of the things that scares you in a project this large is schedule risk,” he said. “If you have no clue how long it’s going to take to get through the town process, and there’s no one clear leader that you can go to for an answer…it makes you wonder weather or not you want to go to that town. This town, at every layer, there’s somebody who’s willing to give an answer.”

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