A design for

the planned new Fayette County Jail and Courthouse complex should be in

hand next month, said County Commissioner Greg Dunn.

Dunn has been

appointed liaison to work with companies designing and building the $58

million project.

"We are

at the 85 percent complete stage for the design work, and we think we'll

get it done in December," said Dunn.

"We have

tons of drawings already," he added.

And so far

there have been no big surprises, thanks to months of preliminary work,

he said.

Staff people

and elected officials with the Sheriff's Department, the courts and the

county spent hours going over specifications for the project before preliminary

designs were approved.

"Everything

is coming right up the way we think it should," said Dunn. "We

did a lot of work prior to beginning the design, and now that prior work

is paying off," he added.

Plans for the

complex include adding two new housing pods, each holding 192 inmates,

to the existing county jail.

The existing

jail would then be renovated to provide maximum security for those accused

of violent crimes. One of the new pods would house medium-security inmates,

while the other would be a dormitory-type facility for status offenders.

Total capacity

of all three pods would be 459 inmates, with space set aside for two additional

192-prisoner pods in case they should be needed in the future.

Plans also

include building a new three-story courthouse facility next to the jail,

and connecting jail and courthouse with an underground passageway so prisoners

can be transported to court sessions without the additional risk of taking

them outside.

The courthouse

will include state-of-the-art security, with cameras at all entrances.

When designers

finish their work, county officials will have about 450 architectural

drawings to review, he said. "So far, everything is coming right

on schedule," he said.

In the next

phase, consultants will begin the work of preparing bids for construction

of the jail.