U.S. Department of Agriculture Plans New $50 Million Poultry Research Lab in Georgia

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). After five years of planning, the United States Department of Agriculture is getting closer to constructing a new poultry research laboratory in Athens, Georgia. Final design plans are being tweaked, mainly to address security issues at the new facility, before the project proposal goes before Congress for approval. Once the project is approved, the Architectural firm of Lord, Aeck & Sargent Incorporated (Atlanta, Georgia) will still have about a year of design work to perform.

The new $50 million 40,000 square foot laboratory will consist of an animal wing, laboratory space, and an administration area. The new lab will replace an existing lab in Michigan and about 25 jobs will be transferred to the Georgia lab.

The lab will mainly focus on research related to poultry diseases such as Marek's virus, avian influenza, and Newcastle disease. Georgia is the country's top broiler producer and third in egg production, which had an influence on the USDA's selection of the Athens Site.

The facility will be located on College Station Road near the University of Georgia and plans are to hold groundbreaking sometime during late summer of 2003. The project is expected to take about two years to construct.

While about 50 people currently work at the 40-year old existing building, the new Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory would employ about 75 people and increase the lab's annual budget by about $3.5 million per year.