The city on Monday afternoon released cost estimates it received from two local architectural firms for renovating the City-County Building and the building at 200 E. Berry St., commonly known as Renaissance Square.

The firms - Design Collaborative and Schenkel Shultz - based their numbers on city-county co-location space needs, as outlined by the city-county working group's report released last month.

Design Collaborative estimates the city would spend $8,477,650 to renovate the buildings if an agreement is reached to co-locate the city and county police departments in the City-County building. Schenkel Schultz estimates the city would spend $8,665,653.

The city would spend $10,495,068 for public safety co-location in the Renaissance Square building, according to Design Collaborative. Most of the costs - about $9.6 million - would be spent on renovating that building. Schenkel Shultz's estimate comes in lower - $9,930,457.

“These costs are well within (the) city's expectations,” Mayor Tom Henry said.

The city previously estimated renovation costs of only Renaissance Square at $7.2 million. City Council last month approved a $17.3 million financing package that included the purchase, renovation and overhead costs of the property.

The city has said the driving force behind the Renaissance Square purchase was to move its police department into modern headquarters from an undersized and dated building on Creighton Avenue.

The county expressed its desire all along to possibly co-locate police departments and administrative offices in the buildings.

The consensus between the governments now: Co-locate the police departments in one building and move (or keep) administrative offices in the other.

Henry said he prefers police department co-location in the City-County Building but is OK with the departments in Renaissance Square.

“The administration did anticipate several million dollars… but they are well within what we had anticipated,” Henry said.

“If the public safety departments both go to (200) East Berry, then costs do come in slightly higher than anticipated. But I believe that the co-location opportunity, balanced against the cost for either one, makes a good choice.”

The city shared the numbers with the County Commissioners and wants a response by Thanksgiving.

Design Collaborative estimates the county could spend $7,255,030 for police department co-location in the City-County Building; Schenkel Shultz estimates a cost of $7,501,214. However, if the departments are co-located in Renaissance Square, costs are estimated much lower.

Design Collaborative approximates a cost of $5,667,242 and Schenkel Schultz says $6,574,895.

“This is just the start of a conversation,” City Controller Pat Roller said. “This is not an allocation of a certain department to a certain building. This is just an estimation.”

The city estimated it could've spent $17.3 million in renovations to the Creighton Avenue location had the police department's headquarters remained there.