The exploding popularity of

competitive swimming in Fayette County's high schools has pushed

the Kedron Fieldhouse indoor pool in Peachtree City to the limit, and

has forced taking the annual county swim championships to a public pool

in a southwest Atlanta neighborhood.

But next year the championships

could finally come home again - to a brand new, private indoor swim

facility being planned for Jenkins Road in Tyrone, directly across the

street from Sandy Creek High School.

The owners of Peachtree Diving

Center in Peachtree City plan to break ground within 90 days on Peachtree

Swim Center on an eight-acre tract between Hopewell United Methodist Church

and Flat Rock Middle School, members of the Board of Education were told

Monday night.

Kim Carawan, who owns Peachtree

Dive Center with her husband Robert, said the 31,500 square-foot indoor

facility will feature three pools, including a competition-sized junior

Olympic pool that the owners hope will at least temporarily meet the needs

of Fayette County's high school swim teams.

She did not give a cost estimate

for the project.

Carawan said the 25-meter,

eight-lane competition pool will include plenty of deck space, spectator

seating and concessions areas which local swim team boosters can utilize

for fund-raising. Currently, the Kedron facility is grossly lacking in

all three areas.

Also to be included are a 30x60-foot

regulation-size training pool and a smaller, 20x40-foot therapy pool,

as well as changing facilities and retail space.

"It will be a very functional

building," said Carawan, describing it as a metal prefab building

with lots of interior glass. She said it could be operational within six

to seven months of groundbreaking, or by next December.

The popular Peachtree Dive

Center operation on Ga. Highway 54 West next to Club Peachtree Fitness

will remain, Carawan said.

She and her husband have been

working with the various local swim coaches, primarily those at Sandy

Creek, to fine-tune the swim center plans, which already have the blessings

of Tyrone officials, she said.

Carawan said there won't

be any "home" competitive swim team based at the facility.

"That's not the purpose

of the facility for us," she said.

Instead, it will be used primarily

to teach swimming and provide physical therapy, as well as to serve as

a place for the local school teams to practice and compete.

"From experience, we have

learned that one pool cannot meet the needs of the many different applications

that an aquatic environment can provide," said Carawan. "Aquatic

therapy is becoming increasingly more popular among physicians, chiropractors

and orthopedic specialists."

"Fitness swimming, being

primarily an aerobic sport, with benefits to both the cardiovascular and

pulmonary systems, is also gaining popularity," she said.

Still to be worked out is the

financial arrangement between the school system and Peachtree Swim Center

for use of the indoor pool, but Carawan said the revenue that might be

provided by rental agreements with the swim programs wasn't necessary

to make the project a reality.

"We really didn't

make the connection of the tremendous need among the high school swim

teams until recently," she said.

Also being considered is a

shared parking arrangement, so that swim center patrons can utilize the

adjoining school parking areas, especially when large meets are being

held.

Superintendent John DeCotis

welcomed the private venture, though he has been working independently

with the Fayette Family YMCA to build a similar indoor pool adjacent to

the YMCA's property at Huiet and Lester roads.

"There's a real need

for this in the county, and it will definitely benefit the schools,"

said DeCotis of the Peachtree Swim Center. "The more the merrier."

Last year, the Board of Education

agreed to lease 10 acres of surplus property once earmarked for a high

school on Lester Road to the YMCA, in exchange for use of an indoor pool

at that location when one is built.

In other business Monday night,

the board voted to put up for sale the remaining 40-odd acres of that

same tract of land. Land on the north side of Lester Road adjacent to

Cleveland Elementary School has already been reserved for a future middle

school, to be included in November's bond referendum for school construction.

A 60-acre tract for a future

high school was bought two years ago on the north side of Ga. Highway

54, near Fayette Community Hospital.