Once plans for the original Georgia Poultry Laboratory Network’s new headquarters were scrapped, poultry officials began plotting a new look, layout and uses for their home.

“Anytime you have a setback, it gives you more time to think,” said Freddie Smith, project coordinator for GPLN. “We hate we had to wait, but it gave us time to think through a lot of things.”

With the state’s recent purchase of land in North Hall for a new lab, officials now are eagerly planning the eventual move. Last week, they released the new design of the building, which had to be kept at 38,000 square feet.

“Every place that we’ve (tweaked) has come out better,” Smith said. “It’s one of those things that I say the good Lord is just looking out after us.”

A new poultry lab has been in the works for years. The state seemed to have settled on putting the new building at the same site as the current, largely condemned headquarters near downtown Oakwood, then tearing down the old structure.

One of the reasons the state decided against building on the 50-year-old site off Oakwood Road is that “the nature of the surrounding area has turned residential and is not appropriate for the construction of a new poultry lab,” said Paul Melvin, spokesman for the Georgia Building Authority.

Also, the project’s construction budget is $11.26 million and the lowest bid for building at the Oakwood site was about $12.77 million.

The State Properties Commission voted in August to buy 10 acres in the future Gateway Industrial Centre off Ga. 365, spending $69,000 per acre.

The new building, expected to be complete by 2015, will be the first development on a 518-acre tract that is planned to be a new industrial park in Hall County. The property, owned by a group called WW 365 LLC, is expected to be developed over the next 10 to 12 years through a partnership between the county government and the property owners.

For its part, Hall County will have to finish roads, build water lines to the property and extend sewer lines to the park.

The deal requires the county to also install a septic system on the new state property and build sewer lines up Ga. 365 in the next three years. Hall officials still have not decided whether those lines will come from a sewer treatment plant in Lula that the county partially owns or from the south.

Officials believe the lab will serve as a more central location for area farmers.

“Poultry production is really focused in that area,” said Mike Giles, president of the Gainesville-based Georgia Poultry Federation. “It’s just east of Gainesville — that’s where the samples come from, just generally from that part of the state.”

It also will serve as a sort of showplace for the lab’s many visitors, including international groups, officials said.

A major difference between the old and new labs is that the new facility will feature a biosafety level 3 lab, “which is only used when there’s a catastrophic event,” such as avian influenza, which spreads easily among birds but isn’t commonly transmitted to humans, Smith said.

“It’s very expensive to build,” he added. “You’ve got to have different filtration and (other) equipment. Everything has to be stainless steel.”

Overall, “the (new building’s) design is pretty much final,” said Louise Dufour-Zavala, executive director of the GPLN. “There’s not a square inch of this plan that we haven’t revised. Now, it’s a question of packaging it to go to bid.”

Melvin said the unofficial general discussion at the state level “has been (that) once the lab moves to the new location, then the (old) property will be put out for bid and sold.”

According to the Georgia Environmental Policy Act, the state must fill out a checklist addressing such issues as wetlands, flood plains and water supply when selling a piece of property that is 5 acres or larger. The lab sits on 10.73 acres.

“We would also allow interested parties to inspect the property,” Melvin said.

Also, as the property owners, the Georgia Department of Agriculture “will be responsible for overseeing that the checklist is completed,” he added.

Oakwood officials found out about the state’s plans to move the lab in December, or during the middle of trying to plan for sewer to the site. That work hasn’t ended for the city.

“We’ll basically have the easement ready to go when something happens on the property,” City Manager Stan Brown said. “It would be nice to see the land put to a good use.”

The property is close to the four-lane Thurmon Tanner Parkway, which was completed in late 2011.