Fayette County Commissioners, meeting Tuesday with the Peachtree City Council, asked for and received support from the council on building a new county jail in Fayetteville to replace the current overcrowded facility.

At issue are final plans for the construction, total costs and methods of financing, said Commission Chairman Harold Bost. At present the county favors a Special Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) to finance the complex, but commissioners are worried about school needs and public support, Bost said.

The jail is the most critical piece of new construction, he added, since the facility routinely houses twice as many inmates as its original 76-bed design. The new jail would start out with 368 beds, Bost said. He said "we are out of space" in court facilities, so that would be the second priority and might be built at the same time as the jail.

Bost said that the initial plans called for a complex that stood alone, but now the county has purchased some land which will enable the new addition to be linked to the present building.

"We're not going to abandon a multimillion dollar facility that's just about 12 to 14 years old," Bost said. He added that when new courtrooms and accompanying offices are built, the Fayette County Sheriff's Department can expand into what is now courts area. Several different designs and methods of financing are being considered, he noted.