GOVERNMENT
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Port St. Lucie’s building department adds
drive-thru for customers on the go
BY SUSAN BURGESS
It’s customer service on overdrive.
Never again will contractors have
to stand in line at the Port St. Lucie
Building Department to file documents
and pick up permits.
Port St. Lucie’s building department
is the first in the nation to open a
contractor drive-thru window to reduce
wait time and increase efficiency. And,
good news, it is also for anyone who
wants to drop off or pick up documents
at the building department, or just
quickly ask where to find help in any
city department.
“I just love it. I can’t tell you how
much I love it,” says Sunshine Perez,
wife of contractor Roger Perez, who
owns Your Local House Doctor, a
renovation company. She is in and out
of the building department all the time
with documents relating to his renovation
work.
Now she doesn’t have to park or walk
in the rain or heat to go inside, she says.
She brought her three boys with her
recently. One wasn’t feeling well and
she was glad she didn’t have to take
him out of the car.
It takes her less than five minutes to
get her business done. As someone who
spends a lot of time on the road taking
her children various places and helping
her husband with his business, she says
the reduced time at the building department
makes a real difference.
Making a difference is just what
building official Joel Dramis hoped for.
“It meets the needs of our customers,”
he says. October 2019 was the busiest
month in over a decade, with an
upswing in sales and local and out-oftown
contractors and residents coming
to the building department,
he explains.
“When it gets really busy in here
people can wait for 45 minutes to an
with that?
hour in the lobby,” he says. “We are big
fans of customer service here, and you
can’t just brush people off when they
finally get their turn.”
The drive-thru window solves that
problem. A drop-off box, which was
installed a year ago, helps too. It can be
used 24/7, and the box is checked twice
a day, Dramis says. He also installed a
concierge in the lobby who can answer
almost any city question that comes up.
One of the good things about the
drive-thru is that people who have
questions about where to do something
can drive up and ask, Dramis points
out. For example, the person at the window
can tell them where to pay a utility
bill, when the next hazardous waste
drop-off is, how to reach their councilman
or woman, where to volunteer to
pick up litter and much more.
For his innovative ideas and setting
a good example, Dramis was honored
as 2019 Building Official of the Year by
the Building Officials Association of
Florida. E
Contractors or other visitors to the Port St. Lucie Building Department’s new drive-thru no longer have
to park and walk to the lobby in the heat or rain to pick up or drop off permits and other documents.
14 Port St. Lucie Magazine
A contractor shares a laugh with the building
department employee looking up his document.