A huge Miami DMV office is closing — but just for one day for upgrades
On Saturday, May 3, the DMV office at Midway Crossings, formerly known as the Mall of the Americas, will close and then reopen with its regular hours on Monday, May 5, the Miami-Dade Tax Collector's Office announced on Wednesday.
The closure is one of the last steps before the Tax Collector's Office takes over the Midway Crossings DMV office, which is one of the largest in Florida and currently part of a state-run agency.
People often have to wait hours in line at DMV offices across South Florida to get a walk-in appointment, while online scheduling portals are booked out for weeks. Even showing up before the doors open doesn't mean you'll get in, with some people camping overnight for spots.
The DMV offices are mostly state-run operations in South Florida, but that's changing.
Florida is turning over all of its DMV offices in Broward and Miami-Dade to the counties' recently elected tax collectors. While Broward is waiting until 2026 to take over the state DMV offices, Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez said he's pushing to get control of the 10 in his county as soon as possible.
His staff already runs the Northside (15555 Biscayne Blvd. in North Miami) and Central (3721 NW Seventh St. in Miami) DMV offices. He also added DMV windows to the existing Tax Collector's Office (200 NW Second Ave. in Miami).
Next on his takeover list is the Midway Crossings office (7795 W. Flagler St. near Westchester), the largest in Miami-Dade.
'There will be more people working over there — every single window will be open,' Fernandez said Wednesday. 'The state is open on Saturdays until just 1 p.m. [at Midway Crossings]. We'll be extending the hours of operation to 4:30 p.m.'
Both the Central and downtown offices will be open this Saturday. Daiana Rocha, spokesperson for the Tax Collector's Office, said the Midway Crossings site was not taking appointments for Saturday, so the closure only affects people who were hoping to show up that day.
Fernandez said technological upgrades at the offices include credit-card machines at each checkout window, appointment software designed to foil driving schools from scooping up hundreds of appointments in a single day, and virtual line-waiting options that notify people when their walk-in slot is approaching so that they can wait in their cars or visit a nearby store.
Fernandez, a Republican elected in November to an office that had previously been an appointed position within county government, said people needing driver's-licenses should see big improvements soon at the Midway Crossings location.
'Give me two weeks,' he said.
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