Investment firm plans future in historic bank building
On the corner of Farmington and Grand River Roads sits a monument to Farmington’s past and also a glimpse into its future.
A March 4, 1921, article in the Farmington Enterprise predicted the massive brick-and-stone Farmington State Savings Bank building would “inaugurate a new era in the business life of Farmington Village.”
Nearly a century after the bank building’s 1922 opening, GLP Financial Group has similar hopes for the renovated 12,000-squarefoot structure, part of a 33,000-square-foot downtown Farmington business block that the company now owns.
“We want it to be a centerpiece,” says Alex Kocoves, GLP’S CEO and Chairman of the Board. “We want to see the growth of the community. It’s a great place. We could make it better.”
Just as the Farmington State Savings Bank, founded by Farmington settler P.D. Warner in 1910, sought to build a “modern banking building,” as he told the Enterprise, so GLP seeks to modernize the behemoth structure known most recently as The Village Mall, while maintaining the iconic building’s historical footprint.
A unique opportunity
In 2019, financial planning company GLP, founded in 1969, was looking to save money on its increasing rent expenses by purchasing a headquarters building. While there were many buildings on the market, nothing felt right. “Every building we looked at was a big rectangle,” Kocoves says.
Birmingham-based Biddison Architecture and Royal Oak-based Ronnisch Construction Group collaborated to repurpose Birmingham’s 1939 post office into headquarters for The Surnow Company, maintaining the building’s exterior and renovating the interior into modern offices. Could GLP do something similar?
The Village Mall, formerly known as the Farmington State Savings Bank, was for sale and in need of some tender loving care. The interior had been subdivided into shops over the years, sporting many layers of wallpa
per, old plumbing that may not even be in use and many more quirks.
“They just built over (the) top of everything,” Kocoves says.
Nevertheless, Kocoves and GLP President Matt Desantos can see their company’s future in downtown Farmington. “There’s a vibe to it,” says Kocoves, who saw the renovation as a catalyst for creating more traffic and prosperity for the downtown.
The large bank building was part of a block of property that included eight apartments and about 10 other businesses along Grand River and Farmington Roads, which now rent from GLP. A few tenants in the Village Mall building had to relocate. PLUS Skateboarding, which occupied the building’s basement, joined other Glp-owned retail space along Grand River. GLP set up temporary offices there too, moving from its Farmington Hills office at 12 Mile and Halsted Roads.
The renovation
Today, passers-by might notice the “FSB” initials high above the bank’s diagonal entryway and the “Farmington State Savings Bank” lettering on the sides facing Grand River and Farmington Roads.
“We always wanted to keep the integrity of the outside of the building,” Kocoves says, explaining that the original plan to sandblast and restore the exterior limestone proved too time-consuming and expensive. Instead, the builders stripped off the Village Mall designations and layers of paint, giving the exterior a fresh paint coat that mimics the limestone look of the 1920s.
Interior plans include maintaining an open floor plan with floor-to-ceiling visibility. The new space will have three floors — the basement, where the bank’s main vault sat; the main floor, which housed the original lobby and tellers; and an upper floor, newly created with glass-walled offices. An interior staircase will lead to the upper and lower floors, but the addition of an elevator was required by building code.
GLP aimed to restore the original marble floors, but they were too damaged, as was the coffered Fraser fir ceiling. The large windows had to be enlarged a bit, so they extend further toward the floor in the main floor offices. But the overall goal is to meld modern with historic.
The large vault, which was “where the real money was kept” in the original bank, according to Kocoves, will be represented in GLP’S headquarters. Plans are to hoist the hefty vault door — weighing upward of 10,000 pounds, according to a March 1922 Farmington Enterprise article — up from the basement and mount it on a third-floor wall that’s visible to visitors.
Kocoves joked that the builders didn’t find Jimmy Hoffa’s remains in the old structure, but they did find some historic remains, including an old speakeasy. Located beneath what’s now Evolve Body Art Studio, the small room bears evidence of a quick door-locking system to evade police. “They had a cord to pull and it would lock the door if the cops were coming,” Kocoves says. He hopes someone will reopen the speakeasy once the basement is renovated.
The headquarters will house 25 GLP staff members plus some 150 traveling representatives who regularly visit and need an inviting “home base,” Kocoves says. The attractive building will include an executive lounge in one of the top-floor apartments, an employee lounge, an exercise area, a rooftop picnic area, and — if Kocoves has his way — a basement golf simulator to chase away cold-weather blues.