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Liberty Bank Continues Expansion into Western Mass.

By George O'Brien January 18, 2024

Banking and Financial Services Special Coverage

Moving North

President Dave Glidden

Dave Glidden has long referred to it as the “I-91 corridor strategy.”

This is the growth plan for Middletown, Conn.-based Liberty Bank, one that, as the name suggests, focuses on the I-91 corridor, which stretches from New Haven into Southern Vermont.

The bank has followed that strategy, increasing its presence in Southern Conn., and now Western Mass. as well, taking another important step in what could be called its northward advance with the opening last month of its first branch in this region — on Shaker Road in East Longmeadow, just a few miles from the state line.

The facility, a former United Cooperative and then PeoplesUnited branch, was home to a commercial loan-production office that Liberty opened in 2021 and eventually moved to the 23rd floor of Monarch Place in downtown Springfield — after that LPO gave Liberty a foothold of sorts and convinced Glidden, the bank’s president, and other members of his leadership team that it was time to open a full-service branch in the 413.

“We generated a lot of volume and a lot of new customers out of there, and some good deposits,” he said. “When it got to that point, I said, ‘OK … we’ve proven that there’s space and a place for us in this market,’ and that’s when I decided to move the commercial-lending team and their support staff to Monarch Place and tear down the sheetrock and outfit a nice branch on Shaker Road.”

“We are selectively and cautiously considering where to go next. We don’t have to be in a rush, but I can see a total of maybe three to six branches over the next few years — if the right opportunities present themselves.”

With that move, the logical questions — and Glidden was ready for them — is where will the bank go next within the 413, and when?

“We are selectively and cautiously considering where to go next,” he told BusinessWest. “We don’t have to be in a rush, but I can see a total of maybe three to six branches over the next few years — if the right opportunities present themselves.

“I wouldn’t force the issue,” he went on, saying there is no firm timetable and no specific number of locations as a firm goal. “Maybe three to six branches, strategically located, with drive-thrus, with the focus on catering to small to medium-sized business owners. That’s our future plan.”

How this plan shakes out remains to be seen, obviously, and we’ll delve more into where the Liberty name and logo might appear next. For now, the bank wants to continue solidifying its beachhead and take the I-91 corridor strategy to different corners of the 413.

For this issue and its focus on banking and financial services, BusinessWest talked with Glidden about the next possible steps with this strategy and how the drive north will unfold.

Points of Interest

Glidden laughed when he noted that, when people tell him they see the bank’s TV commercials — “the ones with the emu and that guy with the mustache” — he no longer makes the effort to correct them and inform them that those are for the insurance giant Liberty Mutual.

“Why bother — what am I fighting it for?” he asked rhetorically, adding quickly that the last four words of each of those frequently, as in frequently, aired spots — ‘Liberty, Liberty, Liberty … Liberty’ — constitute solid name recognition that he doesn’t have to pay for. “Every time I see that commercial, I’m cheering; people come up to me and say, ‘I saw your commercial.’ I just say, ‘thank you; let me open a checking account for you.’”

Bank employees and elected officials cut the ceremonial ribbon last month on Liberty Bank’s East Longmeadow branch.

This form of free advertising, if you will, is just one of many things that have gone well for Liberty over the past several years. In fact, Glidden said 2023 may be the bank’s third straight year of record profits, though the final numbers are not yet in.

But even if it’s not a record, the bank is maintaining a strong upward trajectory, which it owes to several factors, but especially its aggressive I-91 corridor strategy and the qualities needed to carry it out and gain market share across that wide area.

Elaborating, Glidden said the bank has several advantages, from a name that resonates and crosses state lines easily to a broad portfolio of products on both the commercial and consumer sides of the ledger; from a commitment to the latest digital technology to an attractive size.

Indeed, with more than $7 billion in assets and 56 locations in Connecticut and two in the Bay State, Liberty, the oldest mutual bank in the country, can “out-local the national banks and out-national the local banks,” said Glidden, a native of Holyoke who is well-known in this region and has long considered Western Mass. the next logical area of expansion for the bank.

“We can deliver a balance sheet that’s going to be large enough for 99.9% of the companies up there to grow to whatever they want to be,” he said, adding that this size, coupled with lenders who know and hail from Western Mass., has enabled Liberty to make solid inroads in the local market and presents opportunities to gain market share in this region.

And many changes to the banking landscape, but especially the advent and continued evolution of digital platforms and mobile apps, make it easier to cross state lines, he went on.

“The habits of consumers and small businesses, what they’re looking for from a bank, are not the same as they were 15 years ago.”

“The habits of consumers and small businesses, what they’re looking for from a bank, are not the same as they were 15 years ago,” Glidden explained. “Do they want to know that their bank has a branch so that, if there’s an issue, they can go in and sit with someone and get advice? Yes. But, across the board, transactions and visitations to branches continue to decline, and that decline is not projected to slow down any time soon.

“And that kind of changes the playing field in the sense of being able to go over the line with maybe a toe in the market,” he continued. “If this was 10 to 15 years ago, and I made the decision that I wanted Liberty to go into Western Massachusetts and compete, I probably would have looked to do it through an acquisition strategy. That doesn’t mean that acquisition strategies are off the table, but you don’t have to do that now with digital and mobile apps.”

By All Accounts

As for the growth strategy in the 413, Glidden said that, as with the initial thrust into the region in East Longmeadow, the focus — the ‘macro strategy for this market,” as he called it — is an emphasis on small business and commercial lending, realms that build customers, relationships, deposits, and more, and cement the need for additional branches.

This was the strategy followed in New Haven, where the bank established an LPO, and again in Hartford. And it is the same strategy being deployed north of the border in Greater Springfield.

As he scans the Western Mass. landscape — and, again, he knows it well from his years as regional president at TD Bank — Glidden acknowledged that Western Mass., is, by and large, a no-growth area. And most of its communities — and East Longmeadow is squarely in this category — are considered overbanked.

But there are opportunities, he noted, adding that his team is looking at maps and crunching numbers as they consider where to go next.

There are what would be considered obvious landing spots, he said, mentioning larger population and commercial centers such as West Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, and Westfield, and these may well be the next push pins on the wall map.

“The analytics you use on this stuff gets so complicated … sometimes you need to just take a step back and say, ‘where are all the people, and where are all the businesses?’” he said. “And just put them there.”

‘There’ probably doesn’t mean Hampshire County, at least not at this time, he went on, adding quickly that he certainly wouldn’t rule out putting a branch in a community like South Hadley, which borders Holyoke, Chicopee, and Amherst, and is another of those ‘overbanked’ communities in Western Mass.

“Right now, we’ve had success on the commercial and small-business side; let’s look at Greater Springfield and the surrounding communities,” he told BusinessWest. “If Springfield is the hub, then look at the spokes around there and find the right places to sprinkle a few more branches to service our growing customer base there.”

As he looks ahead, Glidden isn’t expecting another record year when it comes to profitability for Liberty Bank.

Indeed, while 2023 was a very strong year, the pace of growth started to slow during the third and fourth quarters, and this trend will, in all likelihood, continue in the year ahead.

But what will also continue is implementation of the bank’s I-91 corridor strategy, one that has seen Liberty makes its first moves in the Western Mass. market and establish a foothold.

The goal for 2024 and the years to follow will be to strengthen that hold and take the brand to different communities across the region. Just where, when, and how the next steps will take place remain to be seen, but one thing is clear: Liberty’s march north is just getting started.

New England Farm Workers’ Council Transitioning Out of Real Estate

By George O'Brien August 17, 2023

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Divesting the Portfolio

The Paramount Theater/Massasoit Hotel complex is one of several properties in the New England Farm Workers’ Council portfolio now under agreement.

Dan Knapik says that, when he became executive director of the New England Farm Workers’ Council in the summer of 2021, he found a multi-faceted nonprofit agency at what amounts to a crossroads and in need of what he called a “kick start.”

That was especially true when it came to the agency’s broad commercial real-estate portfolio, assembled over the preceding decades with the goals of housing programs, spurring economic development, and creating revenue streams — goals that, in most cases, have not been realized.

“We needed to go aggressively to rent out what we could or sell it,” said Knapik, adding that, in most all cases, the latter option is being pursued. “We put a multi-pronged strategy together; we started renting what we could rent and sell what we couldn’t rent.”

Indeed, a few of the agency’s holdings were sold prior to his arrival, in the winter and spring of 2021, including 1600 Main St. in Springfield (the International Bier Garten), sold for $700,000; and 297-299-301 Main St. in Holyoke, sold for $150,000.

The selloff has continued into this year, with 276 Union Ave. in Bridgeport, Conn. (a rooming house) selling for $656,000 in January. Then, in May and June, the property at 21-23 Hampden St., home to the Shakago Martini and Piano Bar, sold to an Alabama-based real-estate company for $240,000; 2345 Main St. in Springfield sold for $85,000; 203-205 High St. in Holyoke sold for $134,900; 211-213 High St. went for $134,000; and 211-213 High St. sold for $49,900.

“We needed to go aggressively to rent out what we could or sell it. We put a multi-pronged strategy together; we started renting what we could rent and sell what we couldn’t rent.”

There are several other properties now under agreement, Knapik said, including the 1610 Main St./20 Fort St. complex, home to the Student Prince restaurant, and the Paramount Theater/Massasoit Hotel complex further north on Main Street, a historic property that has long been considered a key to revitalization of the downtown. And the agency is actively showing other properties, including 32-34 Hampden St. in Springfield and 217-225 High St. in Holyoke.

“I am determined to divest the portfolio,” Knapik said, adding that doing so gives the agency, an affiliate of Partners for Community, capital to pay down debt, while also freeing it from some heavy tax burdens — nearly $70,000 each quarter for the properties in Springfield alone — and debt service, an estimated $200,000 per quarter. And it will provide the agency the time and opportunity to focus on its mission.

Overall, this is not a particularly good time to be selling real estate, said Knapik, adding that higher interest rates — and they keep getting higher to due to actions by the Federal Reserve to cool the economy and tame inflation — have made this assignment more challenging.

The nonprofit’s board voted last fall to sell the remaining 13 properties in the portfolio, including 1666-1670 Main St. in Springfield.

“It’s been difficult — the Fed’s interest-rate environment has been less than favorable for us, and some of the buildings were not in great shape,” he told BusinessWest, noting that interest rates are more than five points higher than they were just a year or so ago.

But given these market conditions — and the state of the some of the properties — he is not unhappy with the results to date.

“I haven’t been horribly displeased,” he went on. “We’re obviously not selling class-A real estate, but we haven’t lost money on the sales, either.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at the council’s active efforts to shift away from the commercial real-estate business, what this means for the agency, and what it might mean for area communities, especially Springfield and its downtown.

Setting Sale

When BusinessWest toured what is known colloquially as the ‘Fort building’ or ‘Fort complex’ not long after it was purchased by the Farm Workers’ Council in 2010, then-President and CEO Heriberto Flores (he still holds those titles at the agency) talked enthusiastically about bringing new life to the vast spaces in the multi-story complex that had been vacant for years, and, in many cases, decades, with some of the abandoned offices still featuring brightly colored shag carpeting.

The Fort complex is one of several properties in the New England Farm Workers’ Council portfolio now under agreement.

Today, they are still vacant — the Student Prince and the Latino Economic Development Corp. (an affiliate of the council) occupy the ground floor, and they are the only tenants in the complex — and those quiet spaces speak volumes about why the Farm Workers’ Council is divesting itself of its real-estate portfolio, Knapik said, adding that, in many respects, the properties have been underperforming and losing money for several years.

Recapping the history and state of this portfolio, Knapik said the properties were acquired with good intentions and solid goals in mind, but most of the promise has not been realized.

“They weren’t really aggressive about seeking out new tenants, and there was a lot of deferred maintenance on the buildings,” he explained. “A lot of the buildings were bought years ago to put programming in, and one of the mistakes I think the council made was, when programming lost funding, for whatever reason, buildings should have been sold off, and they weren’t. They were held onto for a variety of reasons, and they then became big liabilities, and this is where a lot of the accumulated debt came from.”

“A lot of the buildings were bought years ago to put programming in, and one of the mistakes I think the council made was, when programming lost funding, for whatever reason, buildings should have been sold off, and they weren’t.”

This fact was certainly not lost on the nonprofit’s board, which voted last fall to sell the remaining 13 properties in the portfolio, he said, adding that many have been, and most of the rest are under agreement.

That list includes several properties in downtown Springfield, including 1666-1670 Main St., 1655 Main St. (the Board of Trade Block), 1628-1640 Main St., and 1618-1624 Main St.

As noted earlier, that includes the Fort complex, which is under agreement to a group led by Peter Pan Bus Chairman and CEO Peter Picknelly, one of group of local entrepreneurs who stepped in to rescue the Student Prince several years ago when closure seemed imminent.

It also includes the Paramount and adjoining Massasoit Hotel, a complex that has been envisioned as a multi-use property, with the theater being a host for events and the hotel being converted for housing.

“We have a purchase-and-sale with a development group that goes back pre-COVID,” Knapik explained. “We continue to work with that development group for a project; we continue to talk with them, and I’m hoping that, within the next 60 days, we can execute a final agreement.”

The property at 21-23 Hampden St., home to the Shakago Martini & Piano Bar, is one of several already sold by the New England Farm Workers’ Council.
Staff Photo

He noted that the same rising interest rates that are making sales of these properties more challenging is driving up the cost of redevelopment of the Paramount/Massasoit Hotel complex.

Overall, the sale of the properties in the portfolio should provide the council with some needed capital, Knapik noted, adding quickly that there is substantial debt to pay down.

“There’s about $4 million in total equity after all the mortgages are paid, but there are some legacy debts, some operating debts that Farm Workers’ has accumulated over the years, and we’re hoping to clear that off,” he said, adding that many of the properties do not have mortgages.

Bottom Line

Meanwhile, by getting out of the commercial real-estate business, the council can concentrate its full energies on its programs, and there are many working in several different realms, from economic development to housing to youth and education.

And it can develop and execute the next strategic plan.

“This will allow the council to take a breath and figure out to position itself for what it wants to do in the future,” he said. “We’ve been in business for 52 years, responding to the needs of the community. When this gets done, we’ll propose some ideas to the board of directors and let them decide how they want to go forward.”

Tighe & Bond Continues Impressive Trajectory

By Joseph Bednar August 18, 2022

Architecture Special Coverage

Growth by Design

Tighe & Bond President and CEO Robert Belitz

To say Tighe & Bond is a growing company would be an understatement.

From 2006 to 2016, the Westfield-based engineering firm increased its workforce from 170 to 270, but since then, the tally has expanded to 450, due to a combination of geographic expansion across the Northeast, enhancements to specialized services, and organic growth.

“We like to say it’s still manageable growth — robust, but manageable for us,” said Robert Belitz, who was hired by Tighe & Bond as chief financial officer in 2014 and took the reins as president and CEO three years later. “Our strategic planning process, which we go through every year, says it would be nice to grow between 5% and 10%. So you can see we’re on the higher end of that range.”

Among the recent footprint-expanding additions include an office in Portland, Maine, and two strategic acquisitions. One is a landscape-architecture and urban-planning firm in Boston called Halvorson Design (now Halvorson | Tighe & Bond Studio), which is part of the firm’s continuing strategy in Eastern Mass. and its first office presence in the Hub.

“The work they do is a terrific complement to our existing sites and brings more capabilities to our clients; they also did a lot of coastal-resiliency work as well, and that will continue to be in high demand for us.”

“We like to say it’s still manageable growth — robust, but manageable for us.”

The other recent acquisition was joining forces with RT Group, which expanded the firm’s waterfront and coastal-engineering capabilities in Rhode Island.

“Given where our offices are, there is a tremendous amount of coastline where we have opportunities to support our clients,” Belitz said. “There’s an awful lot of funding that’s being directed toward seawall construction, which is part of our coastal practice. The RT Group does a lot of work around port areas.”

River Valley Co-op in Easthampton is one of the first net-zero-energy grocery stores in Massachusetts.
(Photo by Tighe & Bond)

With offices in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, it’s a natural fit for Tighe & Bond to tackle more coastline work, he added. “There have been a number of natural-disaster events that have raised the awareness of the need for coastal resilience.”

Clippership Wharf in East Boston is a good example. The waterfront residential complex was developed by Lendlease with landscape design by Tighe & Bond and Halvorson, and building design by the Architectural Team. The tiered site includes a harbor walk at the lower level, public access and open spaces at mid-level, and residences and a courtyard above. A ‘living shoreline,’ the first in Boston’s urban harbor, recreates the coastal habitat through the introduction of native plantings and wave-dissipating features to accommodate future sea-level rise, creating a natural flood barrier protecting tenants and other inland properties.

“Our challenge is prioritizing how we can capitalize on all these opportunities in the market.”

Tighe & Bond has also significantly expanded its capabilities in the MEP — mechanical, electrical, and plumbing — area, Belitz said. “We’ve added a significant number of resources there. That’s to serve our existing client base, but it’s also in response to the pandemic, when we were asked to do a fair amount of air-quality work.”

Other growth areas have included traffic and roadway projects as well as asset management, he added. Meanwhile, the firm’s traditional niches in water, wastewater, and other types of projects remain strong.

“We’re still really well-diversified in terms of the services that we can provide to our clients,” he went on. “We’ve trademarked a terminology we call the whole-asset approach, which says we can support a client’s needs on whatever their assets are, from the outset of a project all the way to completion, and that’s because we provide such a broad array of services to our clients.”

At the same time, “I think the stimulus money that’s coming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aligns really well with the services that we provide as an organization, including our core water and wastewater services and our environmental work related to brownfield remediation. Our challenge is prioritizing how we can capitalize on all these opportunities in the market.”

System Expansion

Founded in 1911 to consult on broad-based civil-engineering projects, Tighe & Bond eventually came to specialize in environmental engineering, focusing on water, wastewater, solid-waste, and hazardous-waste issues, and its growing diversity of expertise has been a buffer against economic downturns in any one area.

Currently, 60% to 65% of its projects are public contracts with municipalities and state government agencies throughout New England and New York, and 35% to 40% are private work for a diverse group of industries.

Clippership Wharf in East Boston is an example of a project that includes elements of coastal resiliency.
(Photo by Ed Wonsek)

“It’s a great thing to be diversified during an economic slowdown,” Belitz said. “The diversity of the services we provide has always been beneficial for us.”

That’s particularly important during times of unusual economic disruption, like the current environment.

“We’re always trying to keep an eye on the economic conditions,” he told BusinessWest. “We are partnering very closely with our clients on any supply-chain issues that might cause delays in their projects or extensions of their projects. We’ve been trying to keep a very close eye on that and work closely internally to make sure our people understand how best to communicate with a client. That’s what it comes down to; it’s primarily communication around schedule and timing and making sure that all of that is coordinated.”

The firm has expanded its presence in renewable-energy projects over the past 15 years or so. For example, River Valley Co-op in Easthampton is one of the first net-zero-energy grocery stores in Massachusetts. Tighe’s engineers provided energy-modeling services to evaluate various design alternatives, including HVAC systems, building envelope, and lighting systems. In addition, it designed an array of electric-vehicle charging stations in the co-op parking lot.

Tighe & Bond, like all such firms, has faced an increasingly complex regulatory and permitting landscape, one where environmental concerns once considered minor are now paramount. But Belitz considers these issues not hurdles, but opportunities.

For example, “nitrogen and phosphorous removal for wastewater treatment plants has been a pretty big driver of some of our growth over the last few years,” he explained.

In that vein, the firm recently worked with the town of Southington, Conn. to upgrade its water-pollution control facility. Tighe & Bond developed a phased plan for addressing the town’s wastewater infrastructure needs over the next 20 years. Recent improvements included phosphorus removal, odor control, and UV disinfection.

The upgrades helped the town meet new phosphorus discharge limits that protect the Quinnipiac River, and odor-control measures have helped residents in nearby neighborhoods and those using abutting sports fields. The American Council of Engineering Companies of Connecticut honored the project team’s designs with the 2022 Grand Award for Engineering Excellence.

“We are partnering very closely with our clients on any supply-chain issues that might cause delays in their projects or extensions of their projects.”

Meanwhile, Belitz said, “one of the emerging regulatory drivers is what’s called lead service line replacements, which are requirements for communities to do inventories and replacement plans for the lead service lines. We also do a lot of brownfields cleanup, and that’s been a very significant piece of our growth over the past two to three years, and another example of our well-rounded services.”

Working on the Pipeline

Asked how Tighe & Bond continues to grow its workforce at a time when companies of all kinds are struggling with finding and retaining talent, Belitz said it’s a multi-layered strategy.

“I’m not sure a day goes by when we don’t talk about our hiring and attraction of talent. We’ve beefed up our talent-acquisition function here at the firm to continue to identify and attract candidates to the firm. And once we get candidates to join us, we’ve always done a really good job of investing in their development, in order to retain our latest employees.”

He said the firm’s “very robust” onboarding and training program consists of not only leadership training, but anything people need to do their jobs: project management, quality management, safety and health principles, and more. “We’ve made a very big investment in that area just because we’ve had to, given our growth. We’ve kind of branded it internally as Tighe & Bond University, where new folks come in and meet with their supervisor and figure out what sorts of training they need to be effective in their jobs, and we think that’s key to a successful onboarding.”

Tighe & Bond has purposefully cultivated a culture of mentorship and teamwork as well, particularly between the older and younger generations of engineers.

“One of the nice things that we hear all the time from people in our organization is they get to work on all different kinds of projects,” Belitz said. “The other thing we’ve always done, but have made further investments in, is the ability to work seamlessly across all of our offices. All our offices are fitted with collaboration tools and the technology that people need to work together, and to complement that, we assign new hires to current employees when they join the firm so they can get that initial mentoring and that on-the-job training that is so important to their success.”

The firm adopted a hybrid work model during the pandemic that has continued to be effective, he added. “We think that allows our people not only to have some of the work-life balance and work-life integration objectives they’ve always had, but it still affords us ample opportunities to collaborate on projects and have that on-the-job mentoring and training. That’s how we’ve approached the pandemic, with a pretty big investment in technology to make sure that happens.

“From the outset of the pandemic, we were very intentional about saying our main goals are to look after the safety and health of our people, to protect the jobs of our people, and also to maintain our employee benefits,” he went on. “There was a lot of uncertainty at the time. We had some sectors that slowed down for a short period of time, but we had others that ramped up, and now I think some of those sectors that have slowed down have come out of the pandemic ready to work with Tighe & Bond on even more projects.”

Building a Culture

Belitz said Tighe & Bond’s leadership is proud of the firm’s culture, which includes elements like the Make a Difference program, which affords employees time to give back to their communities through service projects with local nonprofits.

“Even during the pandemic, though we couldn’t do some of those things because of the restrictions, we had a number of our people volunteer in places like food banks and hospitals and places that had the most need during that period of time,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the company’s employee-benefit program has seen additions like a paid-time-off donation program, by which employees can donate hours of unused vacation to co-workers for certain personal needs; and a student-loan repayment benefit through which the company makes a principal payment to an employee’s student loan. “It shows our commitment to importance of education and our commitment to employees,” Belitz said.

Meanwhile, he added, the firm has made further investments in technology, both internally and with tools like drone technology, 3D laser scanning, and enhanced use of GIS. “We think those are things that enhance the client and employee experience.”

The firm has also increased its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion through efforts like the Supporting Women at Tighe & Bond Employee Resource Group and a partnership with the National Society for Black Engineers, which includes two scholarships for students in the engineering field; both efforts aim to increase the diversity of the firm’s talent pipeline.

All these efforts create an environment where people want to work, Belitz said.

“One area that’s super important for us is our employee ownership and the fact that, even in a climate today where there’s a lot of consolidation and a lot of influence of equity investment in engineering and architecture firms, we’re remaining committed to our employee ownership model,” he added.

“That, combined with the fact that we have all our offices within the Northeast, is a very good model for us to keep growing, but to grow in a manageable way. Growth creates opportunity for our people, and I think we’ve got a nice growth model in place.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Liberty Bank Continues Expansion into Western Mass.