By HEATHER BAUGHMAN

baughman@crescent-news.com

Standing tall and bold at the east entrance to Defiance along U.S. 24 is the new operations center for First Federal Bank, a subsidiary of First Defiance Financial Corp.

This building has set the tone for the new executive park that is hoped to develop along Elliott Road in the next few years as U.S. 24 expands to a four-lane highway from Toledo to Fort Wayne.

As the first professional building to be constructed in the park, First Federal Bank's executive vice president of operations, Denny Rose, said the location to house the company's behind-the-scenes operations was ideal as the company continues to expand.

"It was picked amongst a number of sites," Rose said, explaining that the company was looking "to provide a location that is convenient to current employees as well as to allow us to attract talented future employees from multiple communities."

Situated just off the expanding U.S. 24 route and with easy access off the Domersville Road exit, Rose said the approximately 60,000-square-foot building was "a convenient location for our current and future employees from the north, south, east and west."

Currently, the operations center at 25600 Elliott Road has about 110 employees working out of the new building, which houses "basically everything that is a back-office support function," Rose explained, such as accounting, compliance, internal auditing, loan processing, imaging, deposit account support services and IT.

"The retail facility's main office is still downtown (Defiance)," he said, noting that retail customers are not able to do banking at the Elliott Road office. "Anything that supports the client is still downtown, as are the CEO, CFO for First Defiance."

The construction of the $8 million facility, which includes $7 million for the land, building and infrastructure (including telephone, water and sewer) and an additional $1 million for signage and office equipment, was motivated by a number of factors such as better flow within the company and future growth.

Before employees were moved into the office around the end of January, "We were in four different buildings in downtown Defiance. We were scattered and not efficient," Rose said, adding that the previous buildings were at capacity.

"We were not able to continue our growth," Rose said, which was another major motivation for creating one central operations building.

In fact, Rose said the company's mid-March acquisition of Adrian, Mich.-based Pavilion Bancorp Inc. and its subsidiary, the Bank of Lenawee, would not have been possible without additional office space in Defiance.

Since moving into the new building, Rose said, "It's been great ... very well received. It's a much-improved working environment" for all of the employees, who are now "in closer proximity with fellow employees they need to work with on a daily basis."

To make the building as efficient as possible, Rose said, "We designed the building with work-flow in mind, which has improved and streamlined processes.

"Just the fact that the departments now are closer together" has made a huge difference in the company's performance, Rose said.

Too, the building can facilitate on-site training in its two computer labs and can accommodate meetings in its four conference rooms, which can also open up to create one large conference room.

As the company continues to look forward to future growth, Rose said the building currently has the space to accommodate just over 200 employees.

"That is a five-year plan," Rose said.

At that time, the company is prepared to expand the building to the east and west. "That will get us another five years in this building," he said.

With the operations center fully up and running, Rose said, "I think it was a good experience for everyone involved. It brought us closer as a team and was a real positive team-building experience.

"Everyone is looking forward to the future and growth this building brings us."