City officials opened today a new commercial driver’s licensing office for at the site of a former church under the H-1 freeway in Pearl City.

Commercial driver’s licenses are required of those who operate buses, trucks and other commercial vehicles.

The 4,000-square-foot space, located on state land at 897 Second St., is almost three times the size of the trailer in Halawa where CDL operations had been conducted for a number of years. There are now eight windows compared to three previously and there are 25 parking stalls to accommodate customers.

Approximately $6.5 million in state funds were used to renovate the building, which had been leased to a church for a while but recently has been sitting vacant, city Customer Services Director Sheri Kajiwara said.

The Halawa trailer location, across from Aloha Stadium, had been used for CDL operations from 1976 until October 2017, when two men armed with machetes robbed the facility of cash — terrorizing and threatening city employees and customers in the process. Citing security issues, city officials closed the trailer and relocated CDL operations to the main driver’s licensing facility at Kapalama Hale pending the renovation.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the best part of the new facility is that it’s directly across Lehua Avenue from the CDL road skill testing site that opened in December after relocating from Kaneohe.

“In the old days, you went from one facility at Aloha Stadium where you did all your paperwork, and then you had to drive to the Windward side, in Kaneohe, to do the test,” Caldwell said. “Now you do your paperwork here, and the test is … right across the street.”

Gareth Sakakida, managing director for the Hawaii Transportation Association, which represents truckin and tour vehicle companies, joined city officials at the Pearl City location today. He thanked city officials for listening to concerns by the trucking industry about long delays.

“Our high standard of living is dependent on a healthy trucking and tour vehicle industries,” Sakakida said, noting that there is currently a shortage in drivers.

Recently, the city went back to a full staff of four licensing examiners for the first time since the machete incident. Two are permanent workers, and two others are on contracts, said Abul Hassan, city licensing administrator.