The Hall County Board of Commissioners will break in its new meeting room during a planned work session this afternoon.

The five-member group had been splitting time between two buildings — the Courthouse Annex for its work sessions and the Georgia Mountains Center, both in downtown Gainesville.

But now all key government operations are under one roof, the Hall County Government Center, 2875 Browns Bridge Road, including commissioners’ offices and the board’s 332-seat meeting room.

The second-floor room features flat-screen TVs that will show close-ups of speakers and documents being presented during meetings. Windows line the walls, giving visitors a view of the building’s tree-filled property.

A fourth-floor cafeteria, opening soon to employees and the public, will double as an overflow room for commission meetings, featuring a TV screen that will broadcast the action.

As of late last week, officials were scrambling for chairs. In the short term, visitors may be sitting in temporary ones.

“Apparently, Hurricane Sandy has thrown a wrench in the arrival of the new ones,” said county spokeswoman Katie Crumley.

The vast room has been used for training and will be used again this week by the commission, which is set to hold its regular board meeting there at 6 p.m. Thursday.

The Gainesville-Hall Metropolitan Planning Organization’s policy committee is set to hold its first meeting in the room at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

The commission had held its work sessions at the Courthouse Annex since July 2005. And, according to old meeting minutes, “it looks as though the commission has been meeting (otherwise) at the Georgia Mountains Center since March 1997,” Crumley said.

“Before that, (the meetings) were held in the building that now houses the Hall County school system’s offices.”

Creating a new government headquarters for the county has been in the plans for years.

In March 2009, voters OK’d the move as part of a special purpose local option sales tax, earmarking some $17 million for courthouse renovations and the move of county administrative offices.

The county spent $6.1 million in 2010 to buy the 97,000-square-foot building, which is some four miles from downtown Gainesville, and then another $2.9 million in renovation costs. The project took about one year to complete, said Ken Rearden, public works and utilities director.

The government offices are in the former Liberty Mutual building, which was built in 1982 and sits on 33 acres. The building features 525 parking spaces.