Growing membership leads CBAI to expand Springfield headquarters

Visitors to the Community Bankers Association of Illinois headquarters in Springfield these days may find themselves in a "hard hat" area if they wander the wrong way headed out to the parking lot. That's because work is underway to expand the building into the adjacent lot to make more room for staff

The half-million dollar expansion, which began in October, will add 4,500-square-feet to the original 8,800-squarefoot building, built 10 years ago. Growth among CBAI members and within the organization has spawned a need for more room.

"We have no more room for staff expansion, inventory and records storage," said Bob Wingert, CBAI executive director. "Our initial [building] loan of $675,000 is paid down to about $140,000, so we have the financial capacity for this expansion."

The idea originated with CBAI past-president Roger Lehman last spring. Lehmann, president of The Harvard State Bank, suggested an expansion because major repairs were needed to the building. The timing was right. "We basically were full to the brim," said Lehmann. "We could not have added another program or project without renting space or doing something."

In the past decade, CBAI has grown to 530 members from about 475. Along with the growth in membership came a "100 percent growth in services and member participation," requiring an increase in staffing from 18 to 30 employees, said Sam Scott, head of the CBAI building committee and president of Scott State Bank in Bethany.

The tight squeeze due to expanding programs and membership forced the need for more space, but as Lehmann put it, "We were pleased to have that problem."

Wingert described the addition as a function of the association's growth in terms of expanded services for members. "We now have a full-time legal counsel, a full-time certified public accountant, a full-time Web site development/maintenance specialist, and a full-time electronic payments specialist on staff -a reflection of growing member reliance on our association for support."

Lehmann appointed a committee in the spring to look into the idea of building an addition and formulate recommendations. After several weeks of meetings to assess space requirements, review building plans and project costs, the group proposed the addition. The board approved the project in June and hired H&H Construction Services Inc. of Carlinville to do the work.

The new section will create four private offices and four work stations. There also will be a new conference room with state of the art equipment for board meetings and seminars. The room will be twice as large as the current boardroom, and hold about 60 people in classroom-style seating.

Work began in October to prepare the land for the construction project, expected to be complete in April. When finished, the CBAI headquarters will have about 13,300 square feet of space.

As for future growth, Wingert believes the new space will serve CBAI at least as well as the existing building has. "We would anticipate the expansion project will certainly service our needs for the next 10 years," he said.