Secretary of State's driver services facility closing in Wheaton

An express driver services facility is closing next week in downtown Wheaton after the state failed to pay rent on the building for more than six months due to the ongoing budget impasse.

The facility at 128 W. Liberty Drive will permanently close at 5 p.m. March 24.

Martha Winter, LM Commercial Real Estate senior vice president, described the property owners as "good people" who were distraught about having to ask the secretary of state's office to shut down its services in the building.

"It is an investment property for them," she said. "They were very patient, but there's no light at the end of the tunnel. They said the DMV has been a good tenant and they felt very badly about it."

Secretary of state spokesman David Druker said the 138 secretary of state driver services facilities in Illinois stopped receiving rent payments in July.

Winter said no rent payments have been received for the Wheaton facility since then, but Druker said some rent money was sent out to all the locations after lawmakers approved a supplemental appropriation in December.

"All of them are behind," he said. "The landlords have been very patient with the situation with the state. It's very frustrating."

Druker said, however, that the Wheaton location was the first to shut down due to rent not being paid in a timely fashion. The facility, in operation since the late 1990s, serves about 9,000 people a month.

Downtown Wheaton Association Executive Director Paula Barrington said her organization was notified March 4 of the closing.

"It was certainly a surprise to everyone and a disappointment as well," she said, adding that the facility regularly exposed new people to the downtown area. "That particular location is extremely convenient, not just for people living in Wheaton but for people living in the surrounding suburbs as well."

The nine employees who work at the facility will be reassigned to other locations. Druker said once a budget is back in place the secretary of state's office may explore options for relocating the services to a new building in the Wheaton area.

Drivers are encouraged to visit facilities in Lombard, Aurora or Naperville. For a complete list of locations, visit www.cyberdriveillinois.com.