NCDOT will build connector road for VinFast whether the company needs it or not
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- NCDOT is building a new interchange and four‑lane connector to the VinFast site.
- Department is using $200M from incentives package offered to the company in 2022.
- Interchange may open by 2028 but road could lead to vacant land if VinFast withdraws.
It’s not clear if or when Vietnamese carmaker VinFast will build its assembly plant near Moncure. But if it does, there will be a brand new highway interchange connecting the factory with U.S. 1.
The N.C. Department of Transportation has begun the early work of building the interchange, using $200 million provided by lawmakers in 2022. NCDOT has acquired and demolished several homes and Merry Oaks Baptist Church, and contractors are now moving power lines and other utilities.
Construction of the interchange and a four-lane connector road to the site could begin this spring or summer, said Reuben Blakely, NCDOT’s top engineer in the division that includes Chatham County.
“It’s really dependent on utilities,” Blakely said in an interview. “As soon as we can get the utilities out of the way, we’re going to go ahead.”
The interchange and connector road were part of an incentive package worth $1.25 billion that the state and Chatham County put together to persuade VinFast to build on a 1,765-acre “megasite” in Moncure. More than half of that incentive comes in the form of tax credits the company would receive over time if it meets certain hiring and investment goals.
But some of that money is being spent up front, including millions to design a worker training program at Central Carolina Community College and to expand the city of Sanford’s water and sewer capacity. That includes the $200 million that NCDOT used to upgrade Old U.S. 1 near the site and will use for the interchange and connector road.
VinFast announced in March 2022 that it had chosen North Carolina for its first North American factory. At the time, company officials said they hoped to begin producing electric SUVs in Moncure two years later. They said they expected to invest more than $4 billion in the plant and employ at least 7,500 workers by 2027.
Those timelines had already slipped by a year when the company held a groundbreaking ceremony in 2023. Nearly three years later, the company has cleared and graded the site and brought in some steel, but building construction has not begun.
Blakely said the interchange and connector road will take two full years to build and if all goes well they’ll open sometime in 2028, the year VinFast has told the state it intends to begin making SUVs.
“We’re really trying to get done by ‘28, because that’s when they said they’re going to be ready for production,” he said. “We’re trying to be ready.”
A dozen homes and a church demolished
The new interchange will replace existing Exit 84 at Old U.S. 1 with a new one at New Elam Church Road, which will then be relocated and extended to the VinFast property. A new bridge will carry the connector across Old U.S. 1, which will be linked to the new road with two new ramps.
NCDOT’s contractors will concentrate on that bridge first, Blakely said, so drivers may not notice much activity along U.S. 1 right away.
To make room for the bridge and new road, NCDOT bought 43 pieces of property, including 12 homes, a masonry business and Merry Oaks Baptist Church.
VinFast had offered to give the church three acres of land to help it move. But the land has no sewer, water or power, and the cost of moving the 137-year-old building was too great for the small congregation. It was demolished last June.
Most of the congregation now attends a church in Sanford, said member Sharron Bouquin. But they continue to contribute to Merry Oaks Baptist and the missionaries the church has helped support for years, Bouquin said.
Bouquin holds out hope that VinFast will honor its pledge to donate land to the church that it could use for camp meetings or other purposes.
“I have been assured from VinFast that it is still their intent to give us the three acres of land,” she said. “I’ve talked regularly to them, but that has not yet materialized.”
Meanwhile, a few hundred yards from where the church once stood, Dhillon Singh Hardip worries about how the road project will affect Sky Mart, a gas station and convenience store he owns at the Old U.S. 1 interchange.
NCDOT will need to take some property along the front of the Sky Mart as it widens Old U.S. 1. Hardip expects to lose his brick sign with the digital price displays as well as land to within 4 feet of the gas pump island, which he says will make it impossible for customers to drive through.
“They’ll have to back up,” he said.
If not VinFast, perhaps another company will use site
VinFast announced late last month that it produced 200,000 electric vehicles at its plant in Vietnam in 2025 and had opened new factories in Vietnam, India and Indonesia. But the company has been quiet about its planned North American plant; a VinFast executive in the U.S. did not respond to requests for comment.
The N.C. Commerce Department, which put together the incentive package for VinFast, said in a statement that it is communicating with the company to understand its plans and timeline for the Chatham County plant.
“Ultimately, we’ll proceed in a way that advances the full economic development potential of that industrial site,” the department said.
Indeed, it’s possible that the interchange and connector road to the site given to VinFast will ultimately be used by another company, if the Vietnamese automaker bows out. That may mean that for some period of time the four-lane road may simply lead to empty land.
The General Assembly actually provided $250 million for road and rail improvements around the VinFast site, including a second interchange and access road at Exit 81, Pea Ridge Road. Lawmakers made $50 million for that interchange contingent on the company reaching hiring goals for the plant, so the project is on hold.
The state made a similar offer of two new highway interchanges to help persuade Toyota to build a battery plant in Randolph County south of Greensboro. About 2,500 workers now make lithium-ion batteries for Camrys and Corolla Cross SUVs at the sprawling factory, and the second of the two interchanges and access roads from U.S. 421 opened this month.
This story was originally published January 23, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "NCDOT will build connector road for VinFast whether the company needs it or not."
