Driver Service Center moves to Red Bank

Customers wait to be seen while other wait to have their photos taken at the Cherokee Boulevard Drivers Services Center on Friday afternoon. The center is moving to a new location on Dayton Boulevard.

One of the two state Driver Service Centers in Hamilton County will be moving Wednesday from Cherokee Boulevard to a larger, permanent space on Dayton Boulevard.

But some folks aren’t too happy about it, especially since the center is one of the places where voters can get photo IDs now needed to participate in next year’s elections.

The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security closed the branch at 530 Cherokee Blvd. Friday and will open a new, full-service center at 4873 Dayton Blvd. The new location, just north of Browntown Road behind a Red Bank Fire Department station, is about seven miles from the old one.

The new center will open Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Its normal hours will be 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“The facility on Cherokee Boulevard was always a temporary solution to supplement the operations at the driver service center on Bonny Oaks Drive,” state Safety Commissioner Bill Gibbons said in a news release. “We now have a permanent facility to provide driver license services to the citizens of Chattanooga and the surrounding areas.”