On Thursday, the Navy issued an instruction giving the Military Sealift Command the OK for its proposal to move its headquarters from the Washington Navy Yard to Norfolk, Va.

The move, which involves 455 federal civilian jobs and 52 military ones, will happen in waves over the next five years. MSC refers to the headquarters move as a “consolidation” because the command already has a significant presence in southeastern Virginia.

But officials are likely to spend a lot of time recruiting new employees during that transition period. As of now, they expect fewer than half of their D.C.-based headquarters staff to make the move to Hampton Roads.

The estimate is based on “a survey and past experience of other federal employers and private sector employers with consolidations of this sort,” said James Marconi, an MSC spokesman.

Officials said the $31 million move will let MSC — which manages the Navy’s fleet of civilian-crewed supply and transport ships — to better support Fleet Forces Command, which is based at Naval Station Norfolk, the largest navy base in the world.

Besides resupplying the Navy’s warships and moving military cargo around the world, the command’s responsibilities include operating the Navy’s two hospital ships. And one of its vessels, the M/V Cape Ray, was used by DoD to safely neutralize Syria’s chemical weapons in an operation in the Mediterranean Ocean earlier this year.

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