City of Lubbock Utilities Customer Service Center reopens nearly 2 years after flood

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - While flooding restoration was completed several months ago, the city decided now was the time to reopen its City of Lubbock Utilities Customer Service Center across the street from Citizens Tower.

The Tower’s lobby was used for those services after both buildings sustained flood damage in March of 2021.

“It made sense to do it right here, at this point in time, because we’re in between seasons,” Spokesperson Matt Rose said. “We’re not right in the middle of summer when we typically have a lot of customers coming in. This was an ideal time to go ahead and make this switch back to the facility that was really designed and built for City of Lubbock customer service.”

The building at 1401 Avenue K is part of the Citizens Tower Complex and opened in late Summer of 2020. A storm in March of 2021 flooded lower levels of it and Citizens Tower itself, prompting the move and a multi-million-dollar restoration.

“Having business conducted over in the Citizens Tower lobby has worked just fine,” Rose said. “It’s been very, very efficient but it’s time for us to get back to where we were originally slated to be. We hope over the coming weeks, as customers come into the Customer Service Center here, that they’ll see that all of the same amenities that they had across the street, they have in this facility and probably even more.”

Those amenities include the self-serve kiosks as well as customer service representatives. Rose said they will still be available in that restored building when Lubbock Power & Light is removed from the City of Lubbock Utilities bill.

“Customers will continue to come into the Customer Service Center here for City of Lubbock Utilities, even after we transition to the electric competitive market,” Rose said. “Customers are still going to need to pay their city water, wastewater, solid waste, stormwater bills and City of Lubbock Utilities is going to continue being the customer service and billing agent for those four city services.”

Rose said the timeline for that transition remains the same. The remaining 30 percent of Lubbock Power & Light customers not on the ERCOT grid will be switched in May, followed by the shopping window for new electric providers.

“Once that shopping window closes and everybody’s been either assigned to a default representative or has picked their own rep, we will look to make that final migration of customers to their new providers in October of 2023,” Rose said. “The goal here is that by the end of 2023 all 110,000 electric meters for LP&L will now have been transferred to ERCOT, that customers will have picked their new providers, and that City of Lubbock Utilities will now be providing customer service for those other four city services not including LP&L.”

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