Local and state officials held a belated ribbon-cutting for Smithfield’s new Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles office on Dec. 6, six months after its summer opening.

The 4,800-square-foot office on South Church Street between Dollar General and True Value Hardware opened its doors to customers on June 10 just over a year after breaking ground. The DMV had originally planned the ribbon-cutting for July 19 but canceled the ceremony when DMV centers statewide closed in response to the global CrowdStrike computer failure that day.

According to DMV Commissioner Gerald Lackey, the Smithfield DMV has served roughly 15,000 customers from the town and surrounding area since June, averaging just under 150 per day.

The new facility is roughly twice as large as the DMV’s former home on the opposite side of the street that shuttered in 2020 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic but didn’t reopen in 2021 with other DMV service centers. State officials cited its small lobby and lack of bathrooms.

“It seems like it was only yesterday we stood here and broke ground,” said Smithfield Mayor Steve Bowman.

State Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight, called the new DMV a “gem” to emerge from the pandemic.

“When you lose a state facility, you may not get it back,” said Jordan, who two years ago was serving in the House of Delegates when the General Assembly and Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved funding for the DMV’s construction.

Del. Otto Wachsmann, R-Sussex, and a representative from the office of Del. Nadarius Clark, D-Suffolk, who each represent portions of Isle of Wight County, also attended.

Warren Sachs, whose KLS Battery Park Development Group LLC owns the land, will lease the building to the DMV under a 10-year contract. Sachs is in the process of constructing an adjacent shopping center that will house a Mexican restaurant and hair salon.

Lackey said so far there have been zero complaints about the Smithfield facility.

“We have really been welcomed by the community,” Lackey said.

Shortly after taking office in 2022, Youngkin signed an executive order creating a “chief transformation officer” cabinet position and directing that role to review operations at the state DMV. Youngkin, in a subsequent Oct. 18 order, credited that role with reducing DMV customer wait times by 70%, from an average 37 minutes to 10. Smithfield’s DMV listed estimated wait times of 10 minutes as of the afternoon of Dec. 6 for all services on a page displaying its continually updated queue of customers.