After years of debate, county commissioners decided yesterday to allow a private company to operate the Grayson County Jail, but some say this could have a negative impact on downtown Sherman.

The Grayson County Justice Center and new jail have a $ 9 million dollar impact on downtown Sherman which Mayor Bill Magers says will disappear if it's moved.

"The concern that I have is downtown Sherman. If you move the bits and pieces of our judicial system from downtown, what is our next step? I don't think downtown Sherman is ready for this,"said Sherman Mayor Bill Magers.

Mayor Bill Magers compared Sherman to other cities in Texas like McKinney. Their county jail was moved from downtown years ago and so was the courthouse.

"The positive side is nothing moves because the booking area is downtown and the courts are downtown, but the lawyers talk to their clients. Are they going to move their clients?" said Magers.

We asked attorney Michael Young who has had his office in downtown Sherman for 3 years.

"If you look around the town square, possibly the majority of the offices are law offices. So if attorneys have to go away from downtown to court hearings and trials, I would think that necessarily they would move away from the downtown area to where the courthouse might be," said Michael Young, an attorney in downtown Sherman.

Right now, there are no plans to move the Grayson County courthouse, only the jail. The location for the jail is still undetermined but it will be located within Sherman's city limits.

"We're going to work with the county commissioners, they have made their decision and we're going to continue to work with them as best we can to keep downtown a vibrant area," said Magers.

We talked with Grayson County Judge Drue Bynum and he said that they are in negotiations with Southwest Correctional, the company that would build the private jail, and they should reach an agreement with how the company will operate the jail within the next two weeks.