Although it's not 100 percent

complete just yet, the Fayette County Jail has been turned over to the

sheriff's department so it can clean the facility and begin training its

employees to handle the new facility.

Fayette County consulting engineer

Jim Mallett said the contractor is still completing the punch list for

the facility, but it made sense to let the sheriff's department begin

preparing to open up the facility.

Some furniture for the facility

won't be delivered until next month, but the project is "very close"

to completion, Mallett said.

The jail expansion will add

384 new beds to the facility and 65,820 sq. ft. of office space for the

sheriff's department. The expansion was designed so another addition can

be added in the future to double the jail's capacity, Mallett said.

Currently, the county is contracting

with Union City to house 75 prisoners. Approximately $971,000 will be

spent to outfit the new jail, covering everything from audiovisual equipment

to furniture.

The county's new courthouse,

which will be connected to the new jail facility for the transportation

of prisoner to court proceedings, is still scheduled to be complete at

the end of February.

"We had the rainiest October

in the history of Georgia and our contractor did a super job of keeping

up with all the rain we had," Mallett said.

The contractor was especially

efficient on getting the paving work done, which requires a dry surface

to complete, Mallett noted.

"It has to be dry, but

we did it," he said. "Things are looking pretty good right now."

Similar to the jail layout,

the courthouse was designed with future growth in mind as the third floor

will remain unfinished but at the ready for future growth when more courtroom

space is needed, Mallett added. The entire three-floor facility is approximately

150,000 sq. ft., Mallett said.

The county also plans to refurbish

the current courthouse annex for the sheriff's department.

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