GARDENS TO GET NEW $11 MILLION DMV OFFICE
PALM BEACH GARDENS — The days of sweltering in the heat or getting drenched in the rain while waiting for a new driver’s license soon will be over.
Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon on Monday announced plans to demolish the cramped DMV office across from The Gardens Mall on PGA Boulevard to make way for a bigger, better North County Service Center. Construction on the $11 million center is expected to start this summer. It will open in late 2019, according to Gannon’s office.
The tax collector serves as an agent for the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
The DMV will close at the end of the day May 11. The road test course for driver’s licenses will remain in use.
Starting May 14, customers can go to the service center around the corner in the North County Courthouse complex, 3188 PGA Blvd. That service center will honor all appointments scheduled for the DMV.
The 2,000-square-foot DMV office was built in 1978 and is so small it does not have enough room for everyone to wait inside. Instead, customers line up outside, where they are exposed to the elements.
The DMV offers only driver’s licenses. The service center inside the courthouse offers the full range of services, Gannon said.
“It’s not the most efficient way to do business. We have a growing need in north county,” she said.
Every time the Palm Beach County Commission or a city government approves new housing, it adds two or more people who will eventually need to come to the tax collector’s office, Gannon said.
The DMV built structures like the one Gannon calls “the little fort” with money allocated by the legislature “when we were a very small state.”
When Gannon was elected in 2006, Palm Beach County had 700,000 residents. Now, it has more than 1.4 million.
There will be more service stations in the new center to accommodate future growth. But there won’t be an immediate need for new staff, Gannon said.
“As the population increases, we will add additional employees,” she said.
When the new building across from the mall is complete, the service center will vacate its space in the courthouse and move in. There will be no drive-through windows, but there will be a secure drive-by drop box, similar to a mailbox, so that customers can pay bills without exiting their cars.