NCDOT roads to the VinFast factory site are taking longer than expected, too
Last August, the N.C. Department of Transportation unveiled plans to build new roads and interchanges to access the VinFast factory in Chatham County. It told residents at the time that it planned to begin buying property that fall and start construction this past winter.
A year later, property owners are still waiting to hear from NCDOT.
The department now says it hopes to begin acquiring property for the VinFast road improvements off U.S. 1 this fall. Jeff Teague, the project’s team leader, says it’s waiting for an environmental permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“We were hoping we would get that earlier,” Teague said in an interview. “But as we moved along and further refined the design, we had to do some additional environmental studies, which added time to the schedule.”
The delay has left property owners in limbo.
Merry Oaks Baptist Church will likely have to leave the lot it has occupied since 1888, but can’t begin to plan where it will go until it knows how much NCDOT will pay for its property. VinFast has offered land to the church, but the congregation doesn’t know whether it will be able to move its historic building or have to build from scratch.
Dhillon Singh Hardip doesn’t know how much of his property NCDOT will want to take from the Sky Mart convenience store on Old U.S. 1. The plans presented a year ago showed the state taking the row of 16 gas pumps in front of the store to widen the highway, but recent surveys suggest that may not be the case, Hardip said.
“I have adjoining land that they’re taking also,” he said. “They say, ‘We’re going to come see you and offer something,’ but I haven’t seen anybody yet.”
Teague says he thinks NCDOT will take a sliver of property from the Sky Mart along the highway but that the gas pumps will be able to stay.
The 1,800-acre VinFast site is surrounded by two-lane country roads. NCDOT plans new interchanges on U.S. 1 and two new four-lane access roads for the trucks, visitors and thousands of workers who are expected to come to the factory each day.
The state promised to build the roads as part of the deal that brought VinFast to Chatham County. The $1.25 billion package of tax breaks and other incentives includes about $250 million for road and rail improvements in and around the site.
In addition to the church, Teague said NCDOT expects to buy 13 homes and one business to build the first phase of improvements for VinFast. The department plans to relocate, widen and extend New Elam Church Road to the VinFast property and build a new interchange to replace existing Exit 84 from U.S. 1.
This first phase is excepted to cost about $185 million, with construction expected to start in the first part of 2024, Teague said.
VinFast plant taking longer to build than expected
Nothing about the VinFast factory has happened as quickly as described when Gov. Roy Cooper and company CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy announced the company’s plans in March 2022. Thuy said then that VinFast hoped to begin producing electric SUVs at its new Moncure plant in July 2024.
But the company only broke ground on the $4 billion plant late last month and now says it hopes to begin producing cars in 2025.
NCDOT has done some road work near the VinFast site. It has strengthened and repaved some of the two-lane roads that trucks will use to access the construction site, including Christian Chapel Church Road, Pea Ridge Road and Old U.S. 1.
The environmental permit NCDOT and VinFast are seeking from the Army Corps of Engineers will allow the state to build two new interchanges and access roads to the site.
In addition to a new Exit 84, the state has drawn up plans to overhaul Exit 81 and turn two-lane Pea Ridge Road into a new four-lane thoroughfare that leads to the VinFast plant. Work on that part of the project won’t begin, though, until VinFast meets jobs and investment goals set by the General Assembly when it approved part of the incentive package.
