Logix Federal Credit Union is moving its headquarters to Santa Clarita, although company management had hoped to stay at its current location in Burbank.
But rapid expansion of its membership, assets and employees made the move a must.
“Growth has been huge,” said Dave Styler, president and CEO of Logix. “Since 2011 we’ve increased our membership by 70 percent – it’s been off the charts.”
Assuming all goes well with construction and weather doesn’t interfere, the credit union is targeting a Q3 2018 move into the new campus.
An estimate of the total cost, including the price of the land, the building, the technical equipment, furnishings and landscaping puts the price tag of relocation at roughly $100 million.
The move was necessary, said Styler, because there was no suitable property or buildings available in the Burbank area, so they were forced to broaden their search. That included territory from Pasadena to Simi Valley and all the way to the Canejo Valley.
It turned out that a piece of property, about 12 acres located at the corner of Commerce Center Drive and Franklin Parkway in Valencia, was a perfect fit.
“We already have a strong presence in Santa Clarita,” said Styler. “We have four branches up there now and we plan to add more branches over time.”
Also, about 30 percent of the company’s existing staff already lives in the Santa Clarita Valley.
“It made it very easy to make that decision,” he said. “Plus, the Santa Clarita Valley has a very business-friendly environment. They really did a good job of courting us and pointing out the advantages of being in Santa Clarita.”
Styler said the best part about the move is the space that will be available.
Triple the Space
In Burbank, the company has 4.5 acres, and in Valencia that area will almost triple. The company will start out with a 170,000-square-foot building and will have the capability of adding another 85,000 square feet over time for a total of more than 255,000-square-feet.
“It will fulfill our needs for a long, long time,” said Styler.
Logix will keep the Burbank building currently used as its headquarters. Their flagship branch will continue to operate there, and the building will be used as a second data center in case of a disaster. It will also serve as a regional training center.
For the past year and a half the firm has been leasing an additional 12,000 square feet of space located across the street from the main office.
Styler noted that the company will have more that 500 people relocating to Valencia, and the departments that have been divided between two buildings will finally be consolidated in one.
“Having everyone underneath the same roof really adds to the team orientation and really helps to build a culture that we want,” he said.
The full capacity of the new building will be more than 900 people, and Styler expects to reach that capacity within about 10 years.
Then, phase two, which is around another 15 years or so away, will probably get the campus up to 1,300 people.
“I do expect based on the direction of growth that we’re going to get to that point,” he said. “So, we’ll add over 800 jobs up there.”
The new campus will not have a credit union branch there, at least not initially. But the jobs in the new location will run the gamut of all banking operations, including lending operations and payment processes. There will be a lot of new jobs in information technology, said Styler.
“The largest area of growth for the credit union is in mobile banking and online banking, so that’s going to be a huge area,” he said.
Despite the change in geographic location, Logix is not planning on changing the present territory where it does business. Its target areas include the San Fernando, San Gabriel, Antelope and Santa Clarita vallies and the eastern Ventura County area, including Moore Park, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.
The company’s biggest new rollout in the coming days is business service. The aim is to offer business banking accounts, probably first quarter of 2017. Styler said this will allow business customer to bring all of their account over to the credit union.
“We’re really excited about moving to the Santa Clarita Valley,” said Styler. “We know from talking to local business people and some of the governmental folks up there that there’s a large number of folks who live in the Santa Clarita Valley who commute to Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley, and they would love to be able to stay in the Santa Clarita Valley, and we’d love to have a lot of them come to work for us. Hopefully that’s a match and we can take advantage of that need, as well.”