A new building soon will be constructed at the Gainesville Business Park and developers say it will be the key to wooing potential buyers.

Pattillo Construction, the park's developers, will break ground on a speculative building in June. The partial structure, consisting of three walls and a roof, is meant to trim construction time, offering initial square footage with room to expand.

"The spec building is our product," said Tim Evans, vice president for economic development for the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce. "It's our bait. It gets them into the community."

Evans said about 85 percent of inquiring businesses are looking for an available building, with just 15 percent wanting to start from scratch. A spec building is often a major draw for these companies, and Evans said that certainly has been the case in Hall County.

"Without a spec building, Kings Hawaiian (a California-based bakery) would not be in Oakwood," he said.

When the Gainesville-Hall County Development Authority sold the rights to the Gainesville Business Park to Pattillo Industrial Real Estate in March, the contract included an obligation for a spec building to be continuously available at the site. However, the company announced the development of the new ZF Wind Power headquarters in April and pushed back construction on the first spec building.

According to Larry Callahan, Pattillo's chief executive officer, site grading for the spec building will begin in June, with walls going up by late 2011.

Callahan said the partial structures are constructed on a "rolling" basis, with development of a new lot beginning after one is sold. The park is split into seven lots, but they can be combined to fit larger needs.

The first spec building, being built on the lot closest to Calvary Church Road, will be approximately 75,000 square feet with the option of doubling the size through expansion.

"The design gets adjusted over time because sometimes you plan it and just while you're planning it someone comes along and says that's almost exactly what I need, except that I need it to be 2 feet taller or 2 feet shorter," he said.

Evans said the initial square footage is determined by the lot size but also by the available building market.

"Right now in the Hall County market we have a lot of buildings that are 40,000 square feet and under and we have a few buildings that are over 100,000 square feet," he said. "But we don't have very many that are between 50,000 and 100,000 square feet."

Already, availability is driving discussion about the development of another business park in Hall County. The last business park, Industrial Park West, was built about 15 years ago. Evans said he doesn't want to see developers wait that long between the Gainesville Business Park and the next project.

"As a community, before we finish selling off all the sites in this one we better have started to think about where's our next one going to be," he said. "We're starting that now."

It's taken 15 years for Industrial Park West to fill up, and one small site still is unoccupied. But Evans said the Gainesville Business Park is already off to a jump start with the ZF development and he expects a majority of the sites to be filled within the next five to seven years. He expects most of the lots to be filled by manufacturing companies, possibly international corporations looking to combine their North American headquarters and production plant.

"We have a sweet spot for manufacturing and manufacturing headquarters," he said. "That's definitely our core strength as a community."