Bulloch County commissioners have voted to hire two firms to perform design studies on a proposed agricultural center and a new county annex building.The design studies will begin immediately, Bulloch County Manager Tom Couch said.Populous Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., will begin crafting a design proposal for a 50,000-square-foot “mixed use, open sided” agricultural arena which will be multipurpose. Plans for the arena, to be built next to the Bulloch County Center for Agriculture on Langston Chapel Road, have been in the works for about 14 years.When the original proposal came about, commissioners then were met with some public concern about $6.1 million in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax set aside for what some called a “horse arena.” Commissioners clarified then that the arena would not only serve the equine sector, but would be used for trade shows, livestock events, car, truck and boat shows, industrial expositions, concerts, farmer’s markets and more.Couch said nine firms applied for the project, and three were interviewed by a committee of county employees, with “input from (commissioners) Walter Gibson and Roy Thompson.”