LEWISTON — After a more than 25-year presence in Lewiston and Auburn, TD Bank confirms it is moving to consolidate its call center and corporate operations in Lewiston and Auburn, confirming it will not renew its lease at its Auburn Contact Center, at 763 Turner St., at the Auburn Mall or its lease at Bates Mill No. 3.

In late 2012, TD Bank extended its lease at Bates Mill No. 3 to 2025. Since then, however, it did not renew a lease for space in Bates Mill No. 7. That more recent decision was made as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced some 1,000 employees who used to work at the mill to work from home.

Bates Mill No. 7 is undergoing extensive renovations and will become the new home of the Lewiston Police Department by year’s end.

Roughly 2,000 TD Bank employees and contractors continue to work remotely in Lewiston and Auburn, which has left tens of thousands of square feet of office space largely vacant since 2020.

TD Bank officials said in a statement to the Sun Journal: “As part of our normal business practices, TD Bank regularly evaluates our existing store and corporate locations. Given the largely hybrid and remote working models of TD Bank’s teams and colleagues in Auburn and at Bates Mill No. 3 in Lewiston, we have recognized that we can bring more colleagues together in fewer, more updated spaces.”

A social media thread discussing the pending move includes replies from posters who say they are current or former employees and indicate the move to Portland was announced internally to happen in October. TD Bank confirmed in its statement: “We will not renew the leases for the Auburn and Bates Mill No. 3 spaces. Our colleagues will exit our Auburn Contact Center in fall 2024, while our Bates Mill No. 3 colleagues will move to TD’s existing offices at 6 Atlantis Way in Lewiston in late summer.”

Jay Brenchick, Auburn’s director of economic development, said what’s happening with TD Bank is emblematic of a larger shift in commercial real estate and offers an upside.

“The impact of remote work on commercial real estate is prompting property owners and developers to adapt and innovate,” he wrote Tuesday. “We are witnessing an evolution of traditional office space to meet the changing needs of businesses and employees. While this is challenging for property owners, the silver lining is that this shift provides opportunities to repurpose office spaces into mixed-use properties, residential units, or alternative commercial uses.”

Lewiston’s economic and community development director, Lincoln Jeffers, said the city has not conducted a formal study to measure the impact of the loss of downtown jobs, but said the impact has been felt by downtown businesses, adding there are fewer office workers going out for lunch, meeting for a drink after work or shopping for groceries on their way home.

“The city has been working with building owners and developers to attract new tenants to vacated office space, or to redevelop those spaces into housing which would help meet the demand for more housing, as well as residents to frequent downtown businesses,” Jeffers wrote in a statement to the Sun Journal. He cited the Continental Mill and redevelopment of the Professional Building at 145 Lisbon St. as examples of those efforts.

Bates Mill No. 3 has been leased by TD Bank since 1999 and has 169,000 square feet spread out over four floors. The bank’s lease expires in October 2025 and is listed for sale through The Dunham Group. TD Bank relinquished two of the four floors in Bates Mill No. 3 in 2020.

Tom Platz, owner and developer of the Bates Mill complex, replied to a request from the Sun Journal for comment on TD Bank’s plans saying Tuesday, “We will wait and see what TD decides the fate of Mill No. 3 will be.”

The big question for employees and contractors is does this move signal a return to an office mandate that other cities are experiencing. TD Bank officials did not say but offered: “TD has not finalized the transition plans for our colleagues and we do not have details to provide at the moment.”

In a follow-up to its initial statement, TD Bank said most employees in Auburn will continue to work primarily offsite/remote, although a handful — around 3% of the team — may transition to Portland.

TD Bank also maintains a corporate office at 6 Atlantis Way in Lewiston. TD Bank said it has no plans to relocate employees from that location.

In June of 2022, TD Bank officials said they were using a variety of working models, but indicated they were moving more toward a hybrid approach to working, bringing remote workers to the office for “on campus events,” training and other company functions.

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