Specify local dll folder upon building VB .NET 2013 - vb.net

Question

When you add a reference to a DLL, you have the option to set the copy local property to True/False. I have looked online and on stackoverflow for a way to specify where that output goes to? I basically would like my assembled exe to be able to reference the dll inside another folder.
My exe would be in the normal root:
/root
but I would want my dll to live inside a folder:
/root/dll_files
for example. Is there any way to achieve this that will work for all dll files?
Keep in mind that I want this to be a dynamic path. I want the dlls to always be in the folder /DLL in reference to the loaded exe
Update
I did try modifying my app.config file to be the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<startup>
<supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
</startup>
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<probing privatePath="bin\DLLs" />
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>
</configuration>
but the dll's still go into /bin and not /bin/DLLS
Another try
Since I am doing this in vb.net and not C#, I also tried making a main sub:
Public Sub Main()
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AppendPrivatePath("DLLS")
Application.EnableVisualStyles()
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(False)
Application.Run(New Form1)
End Sub
I then made this my startup module. The module itself launches fine but the dlls still go into the root path, not /DLLS