Another developer releases renderings of a new Lexington city hall. Take a look.

A Maryland-based developer wants to raze the Fayette County Clerk's downtown office, the Lexington Police Department headquarters and the Helix parking garage on Main Street to build a new city government center.

Municipal Consolidation and Construction and three other developers responded to a request for proposals from the city of Lexington for a new city hall. The other developers include CRM Companies, Cowgill Partners and Pure Development.

The city can not release details of the proposals until the proposals have been reviewed by city staff, but CRM Companies and Cowgill Partners released renderings of their proposed city government buildings last week.

Municipal Consolidation and Construction is proposing to tear down three structures at the corner of Main Street and S. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and replace them with a multi-story city government building and an attached 160-space parking garage. The top floor would have a green roof employee amenity deck, said Bruno Carvalho, of Municipal Consolidation and Construction.

"We are placing the new government headquarters directly in the heart of Lexington, where it belongs as the seat of government," said Carvalho. "While each of these buildings serves an important function, we are in the mindset that Main Street, and downtown Lexington, would be better served by a new government center full of employees coupled with an attractive urban plaza and strong pedestrian connection to the proposed Town Commons directly behind our site."

The proposal does not include tearing down the current government center, which was built in 1918 as the Lafayette Hotel. The Helix garage underwent a $3.1 million renovation in 2013.

CRM Companies, which has an option to buy the Lexington Herald-Leader building at Main Street and Midland Avenue, has proposed remodeling and expanding the newspaper's building. Cowgill Partners has proposed building a new building at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Corral Street.

Pure Development of Indianapolis has not released any details about its proposal.

A team of city employees will meet at the end of May to look at the proposals and will come up with a short list of developers to interview, city officials have said.

The city has spent more than a decade exploring different options for a new city hall, but could still decide no move is necessary.

If it's cheaper to stay in the city's five downtown buildings rather than lease with an option to own from a developer, city hall likely won't move, city officials have said.

But the city's downtown buildings are aging and costs to maintain the buildings continue to climb.

It cost just shy of $4 million a year to maintain all five downtown buildings, a May consultant's report found. The former Lafayette Hotel alone needs more than $22 million in deferred maintenance and upkeep.

This story was originally published April 19, 2018 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Another developer releases renderings of a new Lexington city hall. Take a look.."