Against The Grain

‘A Partner to the Community’: Bankwell Works with Local Businesses in Designing, Outfitting New Elm Street Headquarters

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Laura Waitz, executive vice president and COO at Bankwell, had a vision when the company decided to move its headquarters to New Canaan two years ago. 

The largest private employer in New Canaan at 100-plus workers is “a relationship bank,” Waitz, a New Canaan resident, said on a recent morning from the second-floor conference room of Bankwell, located at the corner of Elm and Grove Streets. “It’s all about building relationships in business and for our employees and for the community we work in,” she said. “So when we expanded and brought so many more people to New Canaan it was about being a partner to the community, as well. And that was critically important and I wanted a workplace that was peaceful and serene and didn’t look ‘corporate banking’ but that would provide a welcoming, collaborative environment.”

In designing it, Bankwell—which already donates to more than 200 organizations per year, with focus on children, education, food insecurity, homelessness and financial literacy—hired, contracted and otherwise worked with dozens of New Canaan businesses. The bank’s placid and functional workspace includes conference room pieces handcrafted by New Canaan’s gifted furniture designer maker, Tom Throop of Black Creek Designs, a custom-made 300-gallon aquarium from Randy Jahier of Life Aquatic on Park Street, walls lined with the work of local artist Elena McCoy and photography from CAS Gallery on Elm Street, gardens planted by Gregg’s Garden Center and Landscaping on Grove Street, with year-round outdoor furniture from Against the Grain on Main Street.

Business

Aquarium Store ‘Life Aquatic’ To Move from South Avenue to Park Street

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After more than seven years on South Avenue, New Canaan’s full-service aquarium store is moving one block away downtown, to the former Radio Shack space on Park Street. Life Aquatic’s owner, Randy Jahier, said he’s very excited about switching to “a much bigger location.”

“I am going to expand my offerings,” Jahier told NewCanaanite.com. “I am primarily saltwater now, so I am going to be going more heavily into freshwater and freshwater plants and upkeep and accessories.”

The move will take place Sept. 1 and Jahier said Life Aquatic will be open through the transition. The new location at 94 Park St.

Business

SLIDESHOW: 20 Things You Only Know If You Shop and Dine in New Canaan

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New Canaanites have plenty of reasons to shop and dine locally, and those reasons go far beyond the fact that the village center has scores of independent businesspeople—retailers, restaurateurs, service providers—who work here and have had a tough go with the weather these past few weeks. Our owners-on-site specialize in their fields and offer a wide range of expertise. They support most every community event that locals associate with the town—fishing derby, Waveny summer concerts, Santa’s visit, little league, Holiday Stroll, ice cream social, Halloween Parade. It’s hard to find two important community events in a row in New Canaan that aren’t sponsored in some way by Walter Stewart’s, Karl Chevy or both. Because familiarity breeds conversation and rapport, we can come to know our local small business owners and workers better than we may at, say, out-of-town chains. The slideshow above is a testament to that strong connection—click through to learn more about some of those who make up the economic lifeblood of the business district.