I think getting two soldering irons might be worth considering. One (potentially cheaper or your "old" station) to keep at the general work bench - usefull for soldering/desoldering cables, modules, ... while debugging/prototyping. For serious soldering (populating boards, actuall IC work), a seperate space only for that - give yourself some room, avoids stuff like microscopes, flux, the 27 rolls of desoldering braid, etc. clutering up your protoype bench (and vice versa - no big powersupply and scopes in your way). Perhaps a old monitor/computer at your soldering bench so you can look up schematics/BOM/etc to check what component you needed and so on.
Oh, and ban all forms of food from that soldering bench. You want a snack? Get up, wash your hands and go eat. Don't want to risk any lead issues, even if it's very improbable if you actually use your brain. Not worth it imo.