Crunch

time for Fayette's recently activated Public

Facilities Authority probably will come some time

in June, county attorney Bill McNally told the

group.

Jim

Mallett and Associates, the firm managing

Fayette's $60 million jail and courthouse

construction project, currently is working on a

preliminary design, McNally told the authority

during its organizational meeting last week. The

preliminary design is expected to be finished in

mid-May, he said.

County

commissioners will then have 30 days to review

the first draft and make comments before the

final design is begun.

"At

that time you're getting into your heavy duty

[costs]," McNally said, adding that it will

be important for the authority to have financing

in place before costs start to weigh too heavily

on the county's operating funds.

When

the authority has issued bonds to finance the

project, the county's general fund will be

reimbursed for its costs thus far, which include

the purchase of more than 20 acres to expand the

downtown Fayetteville site for the project, along

with consultants' fees and the preliminary design

work.

Actual

construction on the project is about a year away,

said county Commissioner Greg Dunn, the

commission's official spokesman for the project.

In

fact, the final design itself normally takes a

year or more, he said, "but we're going to

condense the design phase a little bit and [start

of construction] will probably be early next

year."

Dunn

said he is hoping when all the numbers are

crunched, cost of the project will come in

"just a little bit below" the current

$60 million estimate.

As

the financing agency, the facilities authority

actually will own the jail, courthouse and

sheriff's office until the bonds are paid off, in

30 years or so, McNally said.

The

group will schedule monthly meetings, and may

even meet more often than that in its first year

of activity, but can cancel its meetings anytime

there is no business to conduct, he said.

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