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Alpine Bank goes ‘green’ in Rifle

John GardnerGlenwood Springs, CO Colorado

RIFLE Alpine Bank recently opened its newest Rifle location at 450 Airport Road, and it’s much more than a place to store your money: It’s environmentally conscious as well.”This place is pretty cool,” said Alpine Bank Rifle branch president Jay Rickstrew. “We started a green initiative last year, and we wanted to do anything that would make sense on saving energy.”And that they did.The new facility is fully equipped with a photovoltaic (solar power) system that transforms the sun’s energy into electricity through photovoltaic panels on the roof of the drive-through. With this set up, the bank is making its own energy.”It puts energy back into the grid,” Rickstrew said. “We aren’t buying energy, we are creating our own.”The facility does still use some energy. It’s just a lot less than the usual office buildings in Rifle. One of the brightest features is the daylight harvesting system that adjusts the interior lighting, brighter or dimmer, according to the natural-light level.”There are no light switches in the main part of the building,” Rickstrew said. “The lights are controlled by a computer.”The lights come on automatically at 7 a.m. and turn off automatically at 9 p.m. daily. The building was designed incorporating windows allowing as much natural light as possible without letting direct sunlight into the building. The daylight harvesting system reacts to the amount of natural light during the day.”At times the lights shut off completely,” Rickstrew said.Besides the lighting and the solar power system, the bank also found other ways to be “green.” The furniture is also made from recycled materials, according to Rickstrew, and on the exterior, the landscaping features native plants to reduce the amount of watering needed.”We thought that whatever we could find to save energy we would use it,” Rickstrew said.The new bank is Rifle’s second location. The initial downtown location will remain open.”Rifle is growing,” Rickstrew said. “Our board thought it would be a good idea to have two offices in town. We have a strong commitment to downtown and will continue to do business there.”With the two facilities, Alpine Bank now offers close to 12 hours of banking for Rifle residents, Rickstrew said. The drive-through at the downtown facility opens at 7:30 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m., while the drive-through at the south location doesn’t open until 10 in the morning but remains open until 7 p.m.Alpine Bank employs more than 140 people in Rifle, and with its two banking locations also has its central operations center in Rifle, located next to the new facility on Airport Road.The south Rifle facility offers full-service banking, extended drive-through evening and Saturday hours, featuring four drive-through lanes and a drive-up ATM. Lobby hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Drive-through hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Saturday 8 a.m. to noon. A grand opening event for customers and the community is still to be announced.Alpine Bank is a $2 billion asset organization chartered in 1973 with headquarters in Glenwood Springs, and 35 western and southwestern Colorado banking offices, and it serves more than 100,000 customers providing retail, business, trust, asset management, mortgage, and electronic banking services.


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