TIME TO TAKE A NUMBER
Woonsocket DMV branch opening date is set
WOONSOCKET – Patrons and employees of the local Department of Motor Vehicles Registry Office on Pond Street have been waiting a long time for a new, modern registry site to open on Diamond Hill Road and now it appears that wait may have been worth it. John Fortier of Connecticut, the owner of Integral Real Estate Solutions, was found at the new office in Diamond Hill Plaza on Tuesday and said his company is near completing the long in the works renovation of the old MacDonald’s restaurant space at the end of the commercial plaza overlooking Diamond Hill Road and expects to make the August 6 soft opening date set by the registry for its new location. “Oh yes, it will be done on August 6, that is my birthday so I’ve got to make it,” Fortier said. While there is still some painting, finish trim work, and the installation of bathroom fixtures to be completed, the new office was looking pretty sharp on Tuesday even with what is left to do. Fortier’s company has been working on the project since the old restaurant space – left vacant since McDonald’s moved to a new pad site near the plaza entrance years ago – was completely gutted and its exterior window and door openings redesigned. But a change in the plaza’s management company under its ownership, Integrated Properties of New York, NY, delayed the project from really beginning to move forward until last December, Fortier explained. In the months since, Fortier’s company has installed all new plumbing, electrical and heating and air conditioning utilities in the 5,000 square foot office space and also created new wall partitioning, ceilings, flooring and furnishings.
“Everything here is new,” Fortier said of the major renovation project. The new front entryway will bring customers into a waiting queue near the initial customer service desks where their documents will be checked and service wait numbers issued. The patrons will then proceed further into the back portion of the office where a new waiting room is set up with two public bathrooms. When called, the customers will go up to one of the new service desks where the registry staff will handle their needed registration or licensing paperwork before sending them on their way back out the nearby front entrance. “It was no easy task to complete all this for sure,” Fortier said of the renovation work. “But it is going to be much easier in terms of getting in and getting out,” he said. “It is just going to make it much easier for everyone to come down to the registry and make any transactions that they need to make,” he said. Fortier credited Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and the city’s building inspectors for helping to keep the project moving toward its planned completion date and also said the mayor had played an active role in getting the registry relocated to the plaza. “The city has been really great to work with,” he said. Paul E. Grimaldi, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Revenue, which oversees the DMV, said on Tuesday that progress is being made toward the new office’s opening and the registry officials have been visiting the site to keep tabs on the progress of the project. “There is still work to be done but we need to be in there,” Grimaldi said. Grimaldi said he visited the new location himself last week and saw that the work was progressing. “We just need the contractor to finish. We are very eager to get in there,” he said. Gov. Gina Raimondo and Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt both worked to get the Woonsocket Registry updated, and Grimaldi credited the mayor with helping to keep the project on track. “She helped us to get that site and she is as eager to see it open as we are,” he said. The office at 217 Pond St. is now scheduled to close on Friday, Aug. 3, and the move to the new office to be completed over the weekend before the scheduled soft opening on Aug. 6. That will involve the transfer of any needed office furnishings, equipment, records and supplies and the final set up in the new location, he noted. After the initial opening Grimaldi said a grand opening for the new office will be held on Aug. 15 when local, state and plaza officials will mark the project’s completion. The old registry office on Pond Street is expected to become an office for the Department of Children Youth and Families in the city, Grimaldi said. As for what registry customers will find at the new location, Grimaldi offered that they will find it much easier to access and use the registry’s services than at Pond Street. The Pond Street location had five customer service stations and the new office has boosted those to eight in addition to an expanded initial customer check-in station where each patron’s needs will be assessed before they begin waiting. The new site also has a much larger parking area, he noted, and the RI Public Transit Authority bus to the plaza stops right at new office entrance. The new state budget includes the addition of three new registry employees for Woonsocket, and Grimaldi said they should be aboard when the office opens too. “Just the way it is laid out will make it much more easy for us to service people coming into the office,” he said. Woonsocket’s registry office will remain full service and operate five days a week, he noted. The Registry of Motor Vehicles also operates full-services offices in Cranston, Middletown and Wakefield, and two part-time offices in Warren, two days a week – Tuesday and Thursday, and Westerly, one day week – Friday. Customers can also go to AAA Motor Club offices in Rhode Island for partial registry services, Grimaldi noted.