Trips to the DMV could get a lot longer starting in 2020 as a plan calls for moving the headquarters out of Wake County.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation must move to a new site in 2020. The lowest and leading bid is for a site in Rocky Mount, 54 miles from the Department of Motor Vehicle’s current headquarters near downtown Raleigh.

If state officials approve the move, hundreds of employees will add dozens of miles to their commutes each day. Some will travel more than 100 miles to work and back.

“I’ve got the choice to give up 10 years of my career or travel over an hour from where I live extra. That’s kind of tough,” DMV employee Timothy Atkinson said.

“It’s a good state job. It’s steady work, so I wouldn’t want to give that up, so I have no choice but to commute. I’m going to be looking at a car with better gas mileage, I guess, and having to plan my mornings and afternoons accordingly.”

Atkinson said it takes him about 30 minutes to drive from his home to the existing headquarters.

The building on New Bern Avenue opened in the late-1950s. It has asbestos, and required a $625,000 life safety project in 2011, which led the State Construction Office and Department of Insurance to decide in Raleigh, and it has asbestos issues and other safety concerns, so the legislature ordered it find a new site to move to starting in 2020.

“We know we’ve needed a new building for a long time,” Atkinson said. “This building is old as dirt, and they recently had to clear asbestos out of it because it’s bad working conditions for the employees. A new building is welcome as far as that, but the location is so far away.”

NCDOT spokesperson Jamie Kritzer said the 2018 legislature mandated the move to become effective in 2020. The Raleigh building must be vacant by Nov. 18, 2020 with the entire operation active in a new site by July 2020.

Kritzer said eight organizations submitted proposals of 10 different locations for a new headquarters. The lowest competitive bid is at the site of the former Hardee’s headquarters in Rocky Mount. The facility in Nash County will cost an estimated $2.42 million a year.

Only one other potential site has an annual estimated cost of less than $3 million. The former Ellis Research Center at Research Triangle Park would cost $2.63 million a year, and total $3 million more than the Rocky Mount location over 15 years. The other properties ranged from $3.362 million to $4.46 million a year, exceeding the Hardee’s building by $30 million in the same timeframe.

“The department has gone about this in a very responsible way and they’re working to save taxpayers money as well as to provide good service to the state,” Governor Roy Cooper said. “They’re going to work very hard to make sure their work force is looked after. Clearly that site where DMV is now, there can be very positive things that an happen there.”

Tim Moore, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, said there can be development on the New Bern Avenue site once the old headquarters gets torn down. Moore said there are likely better uses for the downtown property, which may allow the city more opportunities to develop the area.

“If you look at how inexpensive the land is, and the lease would be, to go to Rocky Mount, it seems like a win-win,” Moore said. “I know there’s concern about employees driving and so forth. That’s one of the best roads. (Highway) 64 going east is one of the best roads in the state, and so you’ve got a great ability to get there, and I think it’ll work out just fine.”

Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue strongly opposes the proposal. The state senator from Wake County said there are small businesses near the DMV headquarters which rely on the traffic it brings, and neighborhoods.

“Not only are you going to affect the businesses there and contribute to gentrifying that whole area of town, you’re going to substantially affect the city’s ability to continue aggressively pursuing its rapid transit system. You take that many out of the equation, that has a negative effect,” Blue said.

“You’re also going to take people away from an urban area, where they can catch public transportation to transact their business with the division of motor vehicles, to a place that has no public transportation to get people to the site.”

Blue said he understands the rent is cheaper in Rocky Mount, but he does not think it is worth the savings to move 600 jobs out of Raleigh to a rural area. He said it will place a heavy burden on the employees, many of whom he described as “some of the lowest paid people in the state government,” by expecting them to either lose time and money on travel or consider looking for other jobs.

Moore said he view the proposed move as a positive for Nash County.

“I think it’s good that we’re looking at investing in our rural communities,” Moore said.

The North Carolina Council of State will vote on approving or denying the Rocky Mount lease on Feb. 5. If approved, the state legislature will need to allocate funding for the lease and moving expenses, and NCDOT will begin working with the City of Raleigh to develop a long-term plan for the New Bern Avenue site.

Kritzer said NCDOT will also develop and implement an employee engagement strategy.