The Homer City Council got its first look last week at what kind of new police station the city could get for $6 million and $8 million, respectively.

The council voted in August to have Stantec Architecture work with Police Chief Mark Robl and Public Works Director Carey Meyer to create a 10 percent concept design for a $6 million police station at Heath Street and Grubstake Avenue, known as the Waddell property. At that time, the council eliminated two other station options — a $9 million project and a reworking of the HERC building — from the concept design process.

However, the preliminary design included City Manager Katie Koester’s report to the council at its Oct. 30 meeting includes preliminary designs for a $6 million facility as well as a two-story building that would cost $8 million, both at the Waddell site.

The single story option would be 9,500 square feet and would come in at about $6.4 million including construction costs, furnishings, accessory buildings and repaying the HART fund for the property, among other expenses.

The two-story building option would be 12,300 square feet, according to the design, and would cost just over $8.1 million.

“This ($6 million) option is the result of scaling back our initial effort to create a concept plan based on Chief Robl’s memo which identified minimum square footage needs,” Meyer wrote in a memo to Koester.

There is still money left in the $12,000 budget that was allocated for the concept design to incorporate council and public comments into the final product, according to the memo.

Council members have previously commented that they don’t think the city could afford the earlier $9 million station option. Others have expressed concern about the unknowns that would potentially be involved with building on the Waddell site, which Koester said the city has not done any work or soil sampling on yet.

The council will discuss the preliminary police station design options further during a worksession at 4 p.m. Nov. 27 in the Cowles Council Chambers at City Hall.

Reach Megan Pacer at homernews.com.