Guaranty Bank opens 10th branch, plans operations center

Guaranty Bank’s newest full-service branch opened Aug. 28 at 291 E. Hwy. CC in Nixa, where the bank has two other locations. There also are six Guaranty Bank branches in Springfield and one in Ozark.

The bank’s growth has led to its next endeavor – the transformation of a 17,000-square-foot former public health building into an operations center that will serve all 10 branches.

Kenneth Johnston, Guaranty Bank’s vice president of information systems and chief information officer, said the building was purchased earlier this summer from Chuck Floyd for roughly $1.3 million. The property perviously was home to Missouri’s Southwest District Public Health Laboratory.

The renovation project, designed by architecture firm Butler, Rosenbury & Partners Inc., will be completed by general contractor Morelock-Ross Builders. Johnston said the renovation will push the bank’s total investment in the operations center to at least $1.75 million.

Work is slated to begin this month and should take 12 to 14 weeks.

Johnston said many of the bank functions he oversees, including data processing, information systems and electronic banking, will move into the operations center, along with human resources.

Operations Officer Kent Chambers added that automated teller machine/debit card functions, Bank Secrecy Act personnel and the overdraft privileges program also would move to the Elfindale site.

Currently, all of those services are shoehorned into Guaranty Bank’s main location at Fort Avenue and Battlefield Road, but 40 of Guaranty Bank’s approximately 175 employees will move to the operations center.

“In 1995, when we built the branch at Fort and Battlefield, we had three branches,” Johnston said. “Today we have 10 branches, and we’ve moved from a savings and loan to a full commercial bank. … I’ve had people working off of banquet tables in my department because we just don’t have the space.”

See SBJ’s Sept. 8 issue for In Focus: Banking & Finance, which has more on Guaranty Bank’s operations center and other banking news.