Flowery Branch Wachovia opens

FLOWERY BRANCH - Wachovia, A Wells Fargo Company, opened its first store in Flowery Branch Saturday. It includes “green” features to save water and energy, the first Wells Fargo envelope-free ATMs in north Georgia and the new Wells Fargo floor layout.

In celebration, the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation is making a $10,000 contribution to the North Georgia chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

“Our signs still say Wachovia, but this signals the arrival of Wells Fargo in north Georgia,” said Glen Kelley, community bank president.

The branch has many features limiting its impact on the environment and is built to LEED standards, which if approved, will make this Wachovia’s first LEED-certified silver store in the state of Georgia. Features include plumbing fixtures that are designed to reduce water use by 40%; native and adaptive plants used in exterior landscaping to reduce water needs by 50%; energy efficient light fixtures and HVAC system to reduce energy use by up to 21%; a “light-harvesting system” that cuts energy use by automatically adjusting indoor lighting for maximum use of available daylight; low-emitting paints, adhesives and sealants; and bike racks and preferred parking for low-emission vehicles in the parking lot.

The store at 4706 Hog Mountain Road, the only bank branch in the new Stonebridge Village shopping mall, is the first in north Georgia to have Wells Fargo’s "environmentally-friendly" ATMs that can accept stacks of cash or checks without envelopes. The ATMs accept up to 50 bills of any value and up to 30 checks and can even sell postage stamps. In other parts of the country, company officials say, the new ATMs have saved an estimated 255 tons of paper or the equivalent of 4,284 trees.

The 4,000 square-foot store is also one of the first in the state of Georgia to have the Wells Fargo bank store layout. It employs eight and has six teller lanes, four drive-through lanes, one walk-up ATM and one drive-through ATM.

With the opening of the Stonebridge Village store, Wachovia now has eight bank stores in the Gainesville area.

Link: Wells Fargo