By By Janet Little Cooper
For more than a year Gulf Winds Federal Credit Union has meeting the financial needs of Atmore and surrounding communities in a tight quartered module.
CEO and President, Chris Rutledge is pleased to announce that the newest financial institution to Atmore will hopefully be celebrating the grand opening of a new state-of-the-art facility early in the bank's fourth quarter.
"We would have been in a permanent facility at our present location a lot sooner had it not been for Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis," Rutledge said. "They slowed the process down tremendously."
Construction of a one-story 4,700 square foot building is underway at the bank's current location on the corner of Main and Church Street.
According to Rutledge the new facility will reflect the latest advances in technology that is designed to improve customer service.
"It will have three drive-thru lanes with the capability of 6 featuring a night drop and ATM," Rutledge said. "Each lane will also have a video module that will allow customers and tellers to see each other face to face instead of looking at each other across the lanes. This will improve the communication between the customer and teller quite a bit."
The inside of the structure will have the traditional offices and teller lines. Each teller will be equipped with a teller cash dispenser similar to an ATM. The teller will key in transactions and the machine will count and dispense the money to the teller.
"This machine will speed up transactions considerably," Rutledge said. "It has more than a 99 percent accuracy rating and completes a transaction within two seconds. The machine can process the money much faster than a teller could count it out."
A small children's area will also be included providing children a place to watch videos and play games.
"The response in Atmore has been great," Rutledge said. "This is going to be a wonderful building to serve the new members we have here. We are really excited about being able to provide this to our customers and appreciate everyone who has joined the credit union."
Level Five from Atlanta, Ga. is the general contractor for the project. They specialize in new construction of financial institutions.