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The N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles has found a home for a new, larger driver’s license office in fast-growing southern Wake County.
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The state will buy a former Walgreens store on North Main Street in Fuquay-Varina and turn it into a license office with more than three times the capacity as the existing one in downtown Fuquay.
It’s expected to open by early next year.
The office may also house a license plate agency that handles vehicle tag, registration and title issues. The independent contractor that operates the license plate agency on East Broad Street is interested in moving to the new building, according to DMV spokesman Marty Homan.
The state is spending $3.4 million to buy the vacant 11,538-square-foot building at 816 N. Main St. It expects to spend another $1.7 million on renovations and IT work to get it ready to open to the public, Homan said.
The purchase was approved Tuesday by the Council of State, made up of Gov. Josh Stein and nine other statewide elected officials.
The new DMV office will have 14 computer terminals where driver’s license examiners can wait on customers. That compares to only four in the existing Fuquay-Varina office, in a downtown building it shares with the town’s Centennial Museum.
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The DMV has been looking to expand in southern Wake County for some time. Fuquay-Varina’s population has tripled in the last 20 years, while nearby Holly Springs and southern Wake and northern Harnett counties have also grown significantly. Customers visiting the Fuquay-Varina office last fall were waiting nearly three hours on average to be served, according to DMV data.
Last summer, the General Assembly provided the DMV with money to open and staff four new driver’s license offices, including Fuquay-Varina. The DMV has since opened new offices in Brunswick and Sampson counties, but is still looking for a place for one in Cabarrus County, just north of Charlotte.
The DMV had struggled to find suitable space to lease long-term in Fuquay-Varina, and the money provided by the General Assembly allowed the agency to buy a new home instead, Homan said.
The building has been vacant for several years. It was once a Kerr Drug before the Raleigh-based company was bought by Walgreens in 2013. It has a drive-thru window in the back, though the DMV has no plans to use it, Homan said.
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