Mecklenburg sheriff can use $3.2M to reopen jail north of uptown amid overcrowding
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden moved closer to reopening the shuttered Jail North on Tuesday as local leaders signed off on a funding plan for the project.
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County commissioners voted unanimously to pass a budget amendment allowing McFadden to spend $3.2 million to reopen the facility to help alleviate overcrowding at the county’s main jail in uptown. The board also passed a procedural vote to approve a health plan for the facility.
Located off Statesville Road north of uptown, Jail North previously served as a juvenile detention center from 2020 to 2022 before it shuttered amid staffing problems.
The bulk of the money to reopen it will come from state and federal sources, according to McFadden’s presentation to commissioners, in addition to revenue collected by the Sheriff’s Office through concealed-carry permit fees. The first phase of the project is slated to include four 56-bed housing units, providing 224 additional beds.
McFadden first proposed reopening Jail North to address overcrowding at the uptown jail in May, the same month The Charlotte Observer reported on complaints from several people being kept in the jail.
The Sheriff’s Office attributes the overcrowding in part to Iryna’s Law, legislation named for the Ukrainian refugee fatally stabbed on Charlotte’s Blue Line light rail in 2025. The sweeping criminal justice bill changed some pretrial release rules. Since it took effect, Mecklenburg has recorded its highest average daily jail population since fiscal year 2008, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.
“We are facing an overpopulated detention center,” McFadden told commissioners, adding that some people held at the uptown jail have had to sleep on bunks he described as “a hard plastic apparatus with a three or four inch mattress on the top.”
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County leaders were generally supportive of McFadden’s plan.
“This seems very necessary, and it also seems like a public health matter,” Commissioner Elaine Powell said. “In overcrowded conditions, a lot of things can happen.”
McFadden did face questions during the discussion about the potential of once again housing juveniles at Jail North. He clashed with advocates earlier this month over that possibility.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the sheriff told commissioners the return of a juvenile detention center to Mecklenburg is dependent on whether the state is willing to pay for it.
“We’ve been dancing with the same issue for three years. We’ve been having back-room meetings, sidebar meetings, meetings privately,” McFadden said of those discussions.
County Manager Mike Bryant told the board he’s generally supportive of a juvenile detention center in Mecklenburg, but the county can’t afford to pay for it.
“What I will not do is ask that you invest county dollars, given other priorities that you have,” Bryant said. “As much as I’d like to see a juvenile detention facility here, it won’t be supported by county dollars.”
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This story was originally published September 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
