After more than two years of planning and construction, Citizens Bank opens a large new corporate campus in Johnston Tuesday. The company agreed to a 20-year tax deal with the town, and will make annual payments of $250,000 in lieu of property taxes.
The bank’s headquarters will remain in Providence, but the new Johnston site will house some 3,200 employees. Citizens Bank CEO, Bruce Van Saun, said most of them will move from an office in Cranston.
“Today we have about 2600 colleagues based in our Cranston site, so mostly it will be a ‘lift and shift’ of the Cranston folks, but then there’s a couple other rented facilities in the greater Providence area, and we’ll move some of those people over,” he said.
Van Saun said the new 420,000-square-foot office park shows the company is committed to Rhode Island.
“Rhode Island’s been a great home for us. We have over 5,300 colleagues based in Rhode Island, and so we’re making a commitment to stay there for a long time to come,” Van Saun said.
The Johnston site was controversial with land-use advocates unhappy about commercial development on the untouched, 100-plus acre site. The project required new road and sewer infrastructure.
Citizens Bank estimates it spent about a $275 million on the Johnston site.
