Orrstown buys Dauphin County office building to support growth

The Shippensburg-based bank, subsidiary of Orrstown Financial Services Inc., announced Tuesday it paid about $4.3 million for an 85,000-square-foot office building at 4750 Lindle Road in Swatara Township.

The operations housed in that building will support Orrstown’s expansion in Dauphin, Lancaster and York counties, according to bank officials. Currently, the bank only has one retail office in those areas, a newly opened branch in Lancaster County.

The company’s main headquarters will continue to be in Shippensburg.

Orrstown plans to use about one-third of the building, according to Thomas R. Quinn Jr., Orrstown’s president and CEO. The first people in the building will be business banking lenders, mortgage lenders, and wealth management and investment advisers.

The new location will not house a retail branch, and it will not be a loan production office either. Both options are being considered for the future, bank officials said.

Quinn said the move is tied to the recent consolidation among banks in the region.

The new facility is less than a half-mile from the headquarters of Metro Bank on Paxton Street. The deal in which Metro Bank is being sold to Pittsburgh-based F.N.B. Corp., holding company for First National Bank of Pennsylvania, is expected to close Friday, and F.N.B. officials have not disclosed a plan for the Metro headquarters.

About 230 Metro employees are expected to be laid off as a result of the acquisition.

“As other banks in the region are consolidating, there are many valuable employees looking for an opportunity with a growing company and this facility provides convenient access to attractive markets,” Quinn said.

Quinn said the company looked at five Harrisburg-area locations before settling on the one it bought. The location appealed to Orrstown because of the quick access to major highways.

Quinn also said Orrstown has a number of employees who commute from the Harrisburg area to the Chambersburg area, where much of the bank’s business is based.

“We’re a family-oriented company that values work-life balance, and this will allow them to work closer to home,” Quinn said.

The building had been owned by the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. Orrstown officials said existing tenants in the building plan to stay.

The bank will hold career fairs in the spring, once it is moved in at the new location, to fill any open positions.

Orrstown has about $1.3 billion in assets.