Central Financial Services relocates to north of campus

Former Bank Forward location made new for UND’s Central Financial Services departments

Editor’s Note: The following story originally appeared in UND’s Campus Renewal blog. For updates on UND construction work, as well as reporting on upcoming or ongoing campus renewal projects, check out the blog.

Odella Fuqua, associate vice president for Finance at UND, can’t help but be impressed by what some paint and new carpets can do for a building’s feel and identity.

“Around campus, you notice the brand — the consistency of being in a UND building,” she said. “Especially the buildings that have recently been touched, you realize how much the small details and accents contribute to that feeling.”

To the delight of the Central Financial Services team, much more went into renovating their new office space than green trims and fresh carpet.

The office, which opened after the Memorial Day weekend, is situated to the north of campus — west of the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and north of Ralph Engelstad Arena.

It has been made new from the inside out for Central Financial Services, a core of departments including Procurement & Payment Services; Resource Planning & Allocation; Treasury; Controller; Shared Service Center; and the Office of the Associate Vice President for Finance.

The financial setting is rather fitting, Fuqua said, and the original drive-thru window will in fact be open for dropping off payments and picking up disbursements during business hours — just not for the public to cash checks or exchange coins. After hours, they plan to make the night depository slot available as a convenient paperwork drop-off for UND employees.

Overseeing the renovation of the former Bank Forward building represented a somewhat full-circle moment for Project Manager Lori Oppegard, who joined UND Facilities Management back in November.

Before her time on staff, Oppegard, whose background is in architecture, had a hand in several campus projects while working for local architecture and construction firms.

“When I started this job and was introduced to this project, I remember saying, ‘I actually designed this building,’” Oppegard said. “Coming back to it now in this role is almost like some form of deja vu or karma. You see a space for what it became, rather than what was perhaps intended in the design process.”

When the building was first constructed, the idea was to have Bank Forward on the north side of the building and a Starbucks located in the south section. Instead of Starbucks, the south became a location for Bank Forward’s insurance business. The midpoint separation exists today, which is evident when entering.

“Most of the walls within the building were system walls, so they were movable, and much of the general layout was kept because it worked for what Central Financial Services needed,” Oppegard said. “While reusing as many of the desks as we could, we modified them to make them height-adjustable — which has been the trend in offices.”

The bulk of renovation work was in reconfiguring furniture, recarpeting and refreshing the data cabling, lighting and HVAC systems. New air handling units will be installed this summer, once they arrive, Oppegard said, as well as exterior signage to clearly show UND’s presence.

Also refreshed is the concrete patio behind the building; its concrete was repoured due to wear and tear. Fencing will be installed to further secure the outdoor space of Central Financial Services for teambuilding, outdoor breaks and team lunches — all of which contribute to a sense of belonging, coinciding with the Affinity pillar of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan, Fuqua said.

All of the changes work together to create a fresh start for Fuqua’s teams.

“The new space is beautiful,” Fuqua said. “This is the first time Finance has moved into a refreshed space like this. To say the least, the whole team is excited and determined to take great care of their new office building.”

From the feedback she’s heard thus far, the open feel and ample natural light have created a new atmosphere in comparison to their previous location on Twamley Hall’s fourth floor. The open floor is now a neat arrangement of desks and partitions that make daily check-ins much easier.

With the north side of the building set up as open office space, the south side is an arrangement of individual offices, a conference room and a space for storage.

It’s an environment that gets once-separated teams interacting more regularly, Fuqua said. The nearby amenities, such as the outdoor patio and the nearby walking trail along the English Coulee, are already inspiring plans for after-work engagements. Fuqua is encouraged by what’s in store for those who made the move with her.

“I am thankful for the spaces we previously had in Twamley, but it took an honest effort to go into offices and check for people who were in the building that day,” she remarked. “A quick breeze here is all you need to check in, say ‘good morning,’ and see who’s around.”

The reality of this new office space is that it meets only half of the headcount of Central Financial Services’ staff. For UND, this core of departments is on the forefront of “hot desking” — an arrangement where desks and workspaces are reserved depending on peoples’ needs and schedules. Several staff are fully remote, and others work on a hybrid schedule, cycling between working remotely and on-site.

Though this mix of presence long has been the case for Central Financial Services, the new location presents new challenges for making individual stations seamlessly integrate with staffers’ needs.

“My setups at home and at work are nearly identical,” Fuqua said. “When I take my laptop home, I can plug it in to a dock and everything works the same way as in the office.

“It’s the same situation here, but only with multiple teams of people interacting with the same space.”

Some of the difficulty for scheduling space is based on hardware needs — some people require more computing power than others, which in turn requires different docking stations and setups. With everyone co-located, a more thorough scheduling solution was required that allows people to see a map of the office and know which spaces are compatible with their technology.

Central Financial Services is testing software for scheduling out workstations. It syncs with Microsoft Outlook and Teams, and the University at-large is interested to see how well it works for the team, Fuqua said.

The recent move creates new opportunities for Twamley Hall, including co-locating Human Resources offices on the fourth floor, according to UND Facilities Management.

Future renovations and designations for UND’s longtime administrative building are still in discussion and dependent on future funding.

With Central Financial Services’ physical presence not as critical as other departments, and space in central-campus Twamley in demand, finding a more efficient space made the old Bank Forward location a great option, Fuqua said.

UND currently is leasing the building from the UND Alumni Association & Foundation, which was in part gifted the building from Bank Forward following the branch’s relocation.

Fuqua plans to maintain some type of presence in Twamley, given the number of face-to-face meetings still taking place there involving Finance, but this summer will be a time of both new challenges and opportunities for Central Financial Services.

“We’re thankful for Lori Oppegard, who shepherded this project; the BST staff who worked extra hours to get it cleaned and ready for our move-in; and the Facilities Maintenance team for moving us in a single day,” Fuqua said. “They were all awesome and we appreciate the work they do.”