New DNR region headquarters building nearing completion
Game management and fisheries personnel to move in before Christmas.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources personnel in the Northwest Georgia area hope to move out of their old fertilizer shed and trailers into a new regional headquarters building before Christmas.
Region One Game Management Supervisor Chuck Waters said the move is currently scheduled for Dec. 19.
The final touches are being put on the building on Floyd Springs Road, just a couple of hundred feet behind the old headquarters building.
The new facility will bring game management and fisheries division leaders together under the same roof. The new building includes office space for the lead biologists as well as work space for the technicians whenever they need to come in from the field — whether to do lab analysis, paperwork, or attend large staff meetings.
About a dozen full-time staff members will be housed in the building, however when field technicians come in the numbers could swell up to more than two dozen,
“It’s laid out a lot better,” Waters said. “This (current building) was a little bit of office at one end and an open fertilizer and tractor shed for years. It was closed in by our own staff in the ’80s.”
The new building will have game management personnel on the front hallway, closest to Floyd Springs Road. The fisheries personnel will be located on the back hallway. A large conference room with an 88-inch flat screen for meetings is on one end of the building while a smaller meeting room and new laboratory/analysis room is on the opposite end of the building.
Regional fisheries biologist Jim Hakala said having the new vehicle storage building on site will improve the efficiency of his operation a great deal.
“Currently all of our boats are housed up in Summerville at the hatchery operation,” Hakala said.
He said having access to the new lab would also be a tremendous benefit to some of their fish studies, particularly aging studies.
Lovvorn Construction out of Carrollton is the general contractor for the project but has, at Waters request, used several local subcontractors for the new facility, including Kevin Gurley Inc., a grading and paving firm, as well as White Construction.