Architects Building on Demand for Branch Redesign

More and more banks are redesigning branches to promote product sales and to discourage teller transactions.

That's been a boon to architects who specialize in branch renovations.

Tobias Arianna, a partner at Landy Verderame Arianna Architects in New York, said his firm has received steady work from area banks and thrifts.

Last year, the firm did more than 50 projects for Chemical Banking Corp. involving the installation of automated teller machines. Now it's renovating branches in the wake of Chemical's merger with Chase Manhattan Corp.

"A lot of the stuff we're getting is a result of banks' purchasing smaller banks," said Mr. Arianna. "Quite often we are going in and gutting entire branches and redoing them."

Mr. Arianna said branch renovations usually take six weeks to eight months, with costs ranging from $250,000 to $700,000.

Bank clients are generally cost-conscious, he said, but not always.

"They will do what it takes to get the right number of tellers in there," he said. "But when it comes to, say, spending some money on some architectural details, that kind of stuff gets cut out very quickly."

The biggest challenge, said Mr. Arianna, is keeping the branch open with construction going on.

At one Manhattan office, he said, workers will be cutting through two floors to make room for an escalator. But the teller line is right below the proposed hole. While work is going on, transactions will be handled beneath a scaffolding.

Mr. Arianna characterized working with bank clients as "sort of fun."

"They are very straightforward," he said. "You know what the program is, you know what you need to do."