Walnut Creek will lose its state Department of Motor Vehicles field office downtown, leaving residents needing to visit the DMV in person to go to Concord, Pleasanton or Pittsburg.
DMV officials say the Walnut Creek field office will close for the final time at 5 p.m. Friday. They say a “replacement office” for Walnut Creek will open at 8 a.m. Monday, Nov, 23 inside Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton.
That office was opened in July while the DMV’s main Pleasanton field office at 6300 W. Las Positas Blvd., just west of Hopyard Road, was closed for major renovations including replacing the roof, the furniture and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.
“In searching for new space to replace the Walnut Creek office, there was no space available in the immediate area that met the DMV specifications,” the DMV said in an email Thursday.
The DMV’s lease of the North Broadway parcel is expiring, and won’t be renewed.
The Stoneridge office, the DMV said, will remain open even as the main Pleasanton office comes back online. There will be no new office in Walnut Creek. The nearestDMV offices to Walnut Creek are Concord (six miles), Pittsburg (18 miles) and the two Pleasanton offices, about 20 miles from Walnut Creek.
“Most DMV transactions can now be completed without visiting a field office by using our expanded online services, kiosks, business partners or mail,” DMV Director Steve Gordon said in a news release.
The 1.5-acre parcel that now hosts the Walnut Creek DMV building and its parking lot was bought in June 2018 by BayRock Multifamily, an Oakland-based developer specializing in infill apartment and condominium projects.
BayRock has already built an 11-unit condominium project on the northeast edge of Walnut Creek’s downtown.
Walnut Creek spokeswoman Betsy Burkhart said the city has not yet received any applications from BayRock concerning housing on the DMV site. BayRock, on its website, describes in very general terms what it calls simply the “1910 N. Broadway, DMV Site,” referring to planned development there as a “premier mixed-use development on the site in the future.
Just another government irritant. They seem to be coming faster. Seriously this is a bloody shame.
I am with you on that one, I was able to use the kiosk at Safeway to renew my registration but more options are what we need not fewer…
It will be interesting to see how they configure a new development given the Power Line easement. One more eyesore gone. Now if we can just work on the court building, Little Bear, Butter Cup parcel.
@ idiots everywhere
yes, just what we need, more apartments and fewer family owned small businesses. Long live the Bear!!
I grew up with that bear since the 70’s and it still brings a smile to my face.
I agree. The city council only cares about money. No common sense. They get xtra money for building dense housing close to BART.
I like the Bear (and Buttercup!). Why can’t people who live in apartments own family businesses though? Not seeing a correlation.
Screw the bear. The magic of the bear was that banner reading, “featuring shiny cars”. Now it’s just a bunch of credit card logos. If it don’t feature shiny cars, it ain’t no bear. This isn’t the sixties, you don’t need to advertise that you take credit cards. The bear became dead to me the day they no longer featured shiny cars.
I guess a DMV doesn’t fit into the “chic and trendy” Walnut Creek landscape and the approval of the wannabe yuppies there. To be fair I used it a couple time when I lived there as well as the Concord one in it’s old incarnation. But last years visit to the new Concord build was swift and efficient so no need for anyone to drive to of all places Pleasanton.
… it wasn’t the city – it was the DMV electing not to renew the lease… of course surrounding offices will get the majority of customers displaced by the EC DMV closure… Concord, Pittsburg, El Cerrito…. getting to Pleasanton anytime near commute time is a pain…
In case you had any allusions about who bureaucrats and politicians are ultimately going to make sure are taken care of.
An just like San Quentin will be closed, taxpayers will pay to clear and clean up the land before it’s sold to developers who will build luxury condos for the very rich.
I call bullsh$t.
WC got greedy and wanted to sell the land
Land is privately owned. DMV had a long term lease.
…not the city’s fault – landowner was willing to renew lease, DMV didn’t want to… owner sells property
The City of WC has nothing to do with it, the land is owned by a developer, the State did not renew the lease.
Almost all transactions that DMV does for you, can be handled by a local AAA office. Lots of them around. Well worth the membership fees.
DMV will soo be irrelevent and non existent. Everyone will drive while over medicated and on shrooms..No license needed .Love, Biden the Boob and Gavin the Goon
I had no idea the state was leasing that lot and possibly the building. I sure wish people involved in government would think in the long term. The state and local governments should be planning on being around 1000 or more years from now. While the details of how a property would be used may change from century to century people should plan with the expectation that the government will exist and need facilities.
There is a large electrical transmission tower in the middle of the DMV parking lot. I wonder if that little square of land is included in this deal? There seem to be at least three separate parcels. The southernmost one has the DMV building, the middle one has the electrical transmission tower in the middle with the DMV parking lot wrapped around it, and the northernmost parcel was used as parking for the DMV. The transmission tower may be on its own parcel. The maps are not clear on this.
If the tower is left in place then that means people will be living very close to high voltage transmission lines. It’ll be a good test case for if Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) causes long term health affects…
Go study people living on Cole and Trinity, they already live next to these same wires.
That’s all I can standz and I can’t standz no more!
Why does Walnut Creek haveto travel to the ends of the earth for Jury Duty and now this. Total Insanity!