Bridging gaps in an urban community

Northwestern Financial Review, Nov 15, 2001 by Dullum, Justin

Outside the window of Dorothy Bridges' office, fall leaves pause on the Franklin Bank grounds before drifting past urban apartment complexes,

houses and small businesses-evidence that Bridges works among the people her bank serves. And even though her main office will be relocating to the warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis this December, that won't change.

Within the past decade, the warehouse district experienced a renaissance. Trendy businesses, restaurants and residential complexes popped up seemingly overnight. The public approved and the district's entrepreneurs were applauded for revitalizing a crumbling section of the city. Surely by 2001, area bankers had set up shop in-this growing district. Surprisingly, they had not.

Enter Franklin Bank and Dorothy Bridges, who came on as Franklin Bank's president in 1999. Back then, Bridges inherited the bank's problematic land deal with the city of Minneapolis. The arrangement was supposed to provide land for a new office in south Minneapolis, but after six years of wrangling, the deal was still in limbo. "We were met with one delay after another," said Bridges. "The board became very frustrated and we decided we needed to look for alternate spaces."

In the course of shifting strategy, a location in the city's warehouse district became available. Soon after, the board took action. "It was an easy business decision. We took a look at the property and said this is our spot," Bridges said. Groundbreaking for the new building occurred in March. "From the initial strategic planning perspective, we wanted to be the urban community bank for south Minneapolis. Then we asked ourselves, `What is the urban community?' It's not just south Minneapolis but the entire city. We redirected our strategy to include the city limits."

Bridges feels strongly about banking directly in urban communities, a market she finds under-served. "Corporate banks keep getting larger," commented Bridges, who got her start in banking at First Bank, which is now U.S. Bank. "In the past few months in Minneapolis, four strong regional community banks have been acquired. [See page 27 for more information.] It makes you wonder how much wider can that gap get between the urban community and the huge conglomerates-where geography doesn't matter. The decision-making is done somewhere else. It's a sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality," Bridges said.

Geography matters to Bridges. The move downtown includes converting the current main office into a branch. In order to send a positive message to the neighborhood, the branch will be renovated. "We are not abandoning the neighborhood, and we want to show that we still care about this location," Bridges said.

Bridges also plans for the new office to contribute to its neighborhood. The bank will prominently display a rotation of works by some of the many artists residing in and around the district. The new location's parking lot will be well-suited to host a food and music festival in the summer, Bridges said.

While in college, Bridges had no idea she would become a banker. The Louisiana native was looking for a summer job while obtaining a liberal arts degree from the University of Montana, Missoula. She applied for work as a bank teller. She was also meeting with corporate recruiters visiting the campus. One happened to be from the bank where she had filed an application. "I told him I had applied at his bank. He said, `You know what? I have a better idea."'

Bridges was enrolled in First Bank's corporate manager trainee program and the rest is history. "That's when a banker had to start being more compassionate as well as act more dynamically," Bridges said. "They wanted people from all backgrounds. People with the ability to think and reason-people who could sell their ideas."