The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles on Monday is scheduled to open a new customer service center in Southwest Washington, a long-awaited move that should alleviate the consumer crush at the agency’s C Street hub.
The 10,000-square-foot facility at 95 M St. SW will offer licensing, identification, vehicle services, titling, temporary tags and driving records, in addition to housing DMV headquarters. Driver services will no longer be available at 301 C St. NW, as they have since mid-2005. Adjudication services — where one pays or fights a traffic ticket — will remain at C Street.
“We have been co-located in that facility for almost two years, and it’s time for one function to move out and allow adjudication to expand to that floor area so that they can provide the services the District needs without people being out in the hallways and everything,” DMV Director Lucinda Babers said.
The District purchased the M Street property for $14.9 million and spent another $4.4 million refurbishing it, according to the property management office.
The project was originally slated for completion in late 2005. Earlier that year, when the former K Street center was permanently shuttered, the M Street project was ongoing and the Georgetown branch was closed for renovation, 301 C St. became the hub for adjudication and driver services. Then DMV Director Anne Witt warned “it’s going to be crowded” at C Street for a few months, but work at M Street stretched on for nearly two years.
The new facility, located about a quarter-mile from the Waterfront-Southeastern University Metro station on the Green Line, includes 17 service counters, three fewer than the C Street site. But Babers said the reduction won’t extend wait times if more customers are willing to use neighborhood DMV centers at Penn Branch, GeorgetownPark and Brentwood.
“The problem we had in the past is that everyone wants to go to 301 C Street when in fact we have three other service centers in their community,” she said.
