Athens might be getting another new industry.

Mayor Dan Williams confirmed this week that a high-tech industry is looking for a location in the Tennessee Valley and has been taking a serious look at the old Knight Lumber property on Airport Road.

On Monday night, the City Council rescinded a resolution to move a building from the site to city owned property on Seven Mile Post Road to house an office for a proposed animal shelter. However, Williams said if the company purchases a portion of the old Knight Lumber site, representatives want the structure to remain.

“They’re looking at a couple of different sites in the state, and one of those is in the Tennessee Valley,” said Williams. “They like this piece, and if they take it, they would want the building.”

Williams said the city purchased the 25-acre site on which Knight Lumber was located several months ago. He said the prospective industry would want about a third of the property.

“We’ve just had an initial contact with them,” said Williams. “We have no contract, but I was optimistic and they sounded like they really wanted the property.”

Williams said the industry “wouldn’t be real big to start with,” hiring no more than about a dozen people to start. He said the company would gradually expand.

“It would take them a while to get in full production,” said the mayor. “I would expect that if we can work it out, it would be a fast track, they would want to come in as fast as they can.”

Limestone County Economic Development Association President Tom Hill said he could not divulge anything more than what the mayor revealed.

“It’s just too early to reveal anything at this point,” said Hill. “When we do a tax abatement, that is the time to make it public.”

Hill said his office had been “pretty active” in recent weeks with numerous inquiries from companies interested in coming here.

“We’ve had some inquiries about our spec building,” said Hill.

The city recently provided funding for an industrial spec building in Elm Street Industrial Park. Hill said site work is completed and the foundation is nearly ready to begin putting up walls.

“I would say that in a week to 10 days we can start putting up the metal support system,” he said.

When completed, the building would be worth an estimated $1.4 million, he said.